Topic Last Modified: 2008-12-18

This topic provides information about how to troubleshoot an issue that may occur in a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 environment in which the Exchange server is located in a parent domain, but it contains the mailbox store database file for users in a child domain. In this scenario, you could use Exchange Management Console to remove the mailbox store database file in the parent domain without receiving a warning that the mailboxes for the users in the child domain will be removed.

You can remove the mailbox store database file in the parent domain even though it contains mailboxes for users in the child domain. Similarly, you can use Exchange Management Console to remove a mailbox store database file from a child domain that contains mailboxes for users in the parent domain. 

This issue occurs because the Exchange server only looks for mailboxes for users in the parent domain if the mailbox store is in the parent domain. The Exchange server only looks for the mailboxes for users in the child domain if the mailbox store is in the child domain. 

To work around this issue, do not host mailboxes from the child domain on servers that belong to the parent domain. Similarly, do not host mailboxes for users in the parent domain on servers that belong to the child domain.