Recover disabled mailboxes from Exchange 2013

[sota]

We recently did a hardware migration of MS Exchange 2013 CU11 to a new Exchange 2013 CU21 server. This involved using the move mailbox wizard to move all the mailboxes. The process was completed successfully and after waiting a few weeks, we finished by uninstalling Exchange 2013 from the old server. Nothing else was done to the old server, and the old databases and logs are still in place.
The client has now advised us that there were a number of disabled mailboxes that they had forgotten about, and now need to have recovered. We tried to use the recovery database option on the new server to mount the old databases but this failed, as the Windows server version is different.
As only CU21 and CU22 are avilable for download, how should we proceed to reinstall Exchange 2013 on the old server in order to recover the deleted mailboxes? I presume we use setup /mode:recoverserver but will this work with CU22 and will this allow us to recover the deleted mailboxes? The retention period was set for 1 year so they "should" be there.
Many thanks,
Pat

[rachelgomez_123]

Use the Connect-Mailbox cmdlet in the Shell to connect a user account to a disabled mailbox. You have to specify the type of mailbox that you're connecting. The following examples show the syntax for reconnecting user, linked, and shared mailboxes.

This example connects a user mailbox. The Identity parameter specifies the disconnected mailbox in the Exchange database. The User parameter specifies the Active Directory user account to reconnect the mailbox to.

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Connect-Mailbox -Identity "Jeffrey Zeng" -Database MBXDB01 -User "Jeffrey Zeng"

This example connects a linked mailbox. The Identity parameter specifies the disconnected mailbox in the Exchange database. The LinkedMasterAccount parameter specifies the Active Directory user account in the account forest that you want to reconnect the mailbox to. The Alias parameter specifies the alias, which is the portion of the email address on the left side of the at (@) symbol, for the reconnected mailbox.

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Connect-Mailbox -Identity "Kai Axford" -Database MBXDB02 -LinkedDomainController FabrikamDC01 -LinkedMasterAccount kai.axford@fabrikam.com -Alias kaia

This example connects a shared mailbox.

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Connect-Mailbox -Identity "Corporate Shared Mailbox" -Database "Mailbox Database

Regards,

Rachel Gomez

[terrylee]

Hello, @sota, firstly you should remember that the disabled mailboxes may not show up in the main view. I would reconnect it using this instruction:

1) Go to EAC and find Recipients and Mailboxes in the interface.

2) Click More and after that, click Connect a mailbox.

3) Now you can see the list of the disconnected mailboxes.

4) Now click the disabled mailboxes, you have to reconnect and confirm your choice by Connect and Yes.

[DSPatrick]

I'd try asking for help in dedicated forums over here.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/exchange/en-us/home?forum=exchangesvrgeneral%2Cexchangesvravailabilityandisasterrecovery%2Cexchangesvrdeploy&filter=alltypes&sort=lastpostdesc

[sota]

OK, thank you.

[DSPatrick]

You're welcome.