I assume she was using Outlook and probably Exchange.  Does anyone
   using Outlook really expect to be able to reliably have access to their
   old email very long?  I think "those people" are idiots...  I'd guess
   that Outlook / Exchange versioning issues, curruption, periodic
   rebuilds / restarts, and general Windows / Microsoft related confusion
   led periodic lossage that is just the cost of using such technology.
   I have a continuous archive of email spanning more than 20 years, and
   something like 25-30GB, online and always accessible to me.  And with
   numerous backups, all easy to make and restore.  And all using mbox
   format, around since essentially the beginning of email, which is
   resilient to corruption, truncation, etc.
   In multiple cases, at multiple companies, people have needed access to
   old email and documents which I had but were long ago lost to everyone
   else (who mostly used Outlook).  In one case, it allowed a new contract
   worth probably more than a million or two.
   Email is my most reliable source of stored and organized knowledge.
   I've been hard at work, in my fragmented spare time, working on a true
   knowledgebase app / interchange format / distributed security system.
   (The key problem really is a much better user interface paradigm.)  You
   can bet there will be a couple ways to represent and archive it that is
   as resilient as mbox.
   Stephen
   On 6/15/14, 8:05 AM, Henry Rivera wrote:

   On Jun 15, 2014, at 2:48 AM, jim bell <[1]jamesdbell9@yahoo.com> wrote:

   Note:  I wonder what kind of email system would be:   1.  Used by the
   Federal Government.  2.  NOT be regularly backed-up.   3.  Would lose
   up to two (2) years of emails in a crash.
            Jim Bell
   [article follows]

   Generously giving them the benefit of the doubt, I'm under the
   impression that the backup is what failed. I would assume the target of
   the investigation deleted her inbox.

References

   1. mailto:jamesdbell9@yahoo.com