Lost Inbox Items

[ComputerGenie]

Hello all, I'm facing quite a dilemma. On the 1st on this month I had a call from a family friend reporting problems on his iPod touch he received for christmas.
His BT Connect (business) account would receive but not send emails. While I was there I used the server and port details that I have always used for customers with a BT Connect account but it still would refuse to send emails.
I double checked the BT site and checked the settings I had entered all were correct including the other settings that BT required.
I then tried to set the account up in outlook which should have then allowed me to sync the email account with the iPod using iTunes, same problem. So then I removed the account from outlook since outlook was not used by him.
I looked in to the problem and found that others are having the same problem with various posts in their forums dating from three weeks ago up until the present.
I recommended that he contacted BT to check for any problems on their end.

I received a call today while onsite with another client, he told me that all of his emails in the BT Connect account from before the 3rd (Two days after I was there) have disappeared all email in the other folders are fine and the inbox items are still saved locally on his Blackberry.
Now I'm at a bit of a loose end trying to work a way to recover this inbox and what caused it in the first place.
I should also note while there I set up his personal BT Internet email with no problems, I've never experienced outlook deleting an inbox in such a manner.

 

[ComputerGenie]

My only thought is that outlook retrieved the inbox and stored it locally to the machine.

 

[red12049]

My only thought is that outlook retrieved the inbox and stored it locally to the machine.

Which is exactly what Outlook is set to do by default.

Rick

 

[ComputerGenie]

Exactly, it was just a ridiculous stupid lapse of thought. I'm hoping that there a some data of the removed account remaining on the drive or that I can export the emails off of the blackberry.
Any other options that you guys can think of?

 

[red12049]

Exactly, it was just a ridiculous stupid lapse of thought. I'm hoping that there a some data of the removed account remaining on the drive or that I can export the emails off of the blackberry.
Any other options that you guys can think of?

Disconnect the machine from the internet first! Are the PST's still on the machine, even though you removed Outlook? If so, recovery is right there.

Other thoughts: Reinstall Outlook, sync BB to it, then export emails to whatever program the owner normally uses.

Use the BB to resend the emails to himself.

If the PST's are gone, you can try data recovery software, but the results are much more doubtful.

Let us know what happens.

Rick

 

[ComputerGenie]

Outlook is still installed, although he doesn't use it as he usually accesses his mail either by using BT Connect's web interface or via his Blackberry.
All I did was remove the account within outlook, so there maybe a chance that something remains either within outlook's files or at least within temp files.
I have little experience with Blackberrys and their desktop software, however I would have thought that the mailboxes can be backup, exported or at very least messages can be transferred to the machine.
My last resort would be to send the messages to one of my spare email addresses and bounce them back to him so at least the contents would be available even if not in date order.
I have done a lot of work for him despite him paying a retainer to another company as such I was hoping to take the contract once it expires, this situation really puts that out of the window.
I just cannot believe how I missed such a simple, basic thing such as this.

 

[wimwauters]

It could of course be the case that BT lost email on their own servers, and the symptoms your client has have nothing to do with what you did

BTconnect/BTyahoo & yahoo can be a nightmare

I often have to change BT's SMTP settings every time the enduser switches to a different ISP

For business customers, I STRONGLY recommend they get their own domain and use ISP-provided or freebie email for personal use only. Yes, that includes googlemail.

 

[iptech]

As an anti-relay measure, BT Connect require all accounts to use SMTP authentication. If you want to send BT Connect emails via a third party data provider then you have to use an alternative SMTP server, you cannot use BT Connect's.

It's nothing sinister, it's an attempt to reduce spam.

 

[ComputerGenie]

Thank you all for the sound advice. I have no idea what set up he has at his office since he has another tech company on a retainer for the next few months until the contract expires.
The only pieces of his set up at work is the machines he has bought home to give to me to look at (we live a few doors down from each other.)