Removed Exchange account and lost all email folders except pop3

[SteveL]

Running Outlook 2003 under Windows 2000 on laptop. Added POP3 mail accounts
successfully. Then deleted the Exchange Server account. Immediately lost
all original folder structure and many emails. How can I recover, if at all?
I have old .ost and .pst files but can not access.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

By removing the Exchange account, you also removed its (cached) message
store. If you were still having an active connection to the Exchange server
at that time, then all your messages are still on the Exchange server.
Reconnecting to the Exchange server will recache your messages. Then you can
move these to a pst-file.

If you cannot access the Exchange server anymore but still have the ost-file
and a backup of your Outlook settings (from before you removed the Exchange
account), then restoring these settings will allow you to access the items
stored in the ost-file again.

If all you have is the ost-file, then you can use a 3rd party Outlook
recovery tool to convert your ost-file into a pst-file. For some tools see;
http://www.howto-outlook.com/tag/data-recovery