Posted on 06/20/2014 2:07:00 PM PDT by AAABEST
Good point, everything should have been reloaded on the new hard drive, the purpose of backing up in the first place.
If the users local profile wasn't being backed up, one would certainly think there would be a file server to keep a users important files. However, when Outlook archive files are created the default location is in the local users profile. A user would have to manually drag the .pst files to the server for safe keeping.
Hopefully more information will leak out or be released as to what happened.
No one can explained what was being backed upped and how. .PST files are stored in the main My Documents folder now where everything typically is located. You backup your My Document folder, you back up Outlook. But my main point was, “If the backup existed for three months on tapes, why weren’t they restored the next day or so?” That is why you back up.
When I was working we knew the e-mails were on the server, but every couple of months we would make a CD of the .pst for ourselves. I don't know how many times I was able to cover my ass or reconstruct the thought process that went into a decision. Working spreadsheets and other documents went to other servers and were often caught in the e-mails themselves. It was also my understanding backups of the server were a daily occurrence. Companies can't afford to have months or years of work go down the tube. It would be very costly. I think it's time for the IRS to ask the NSA to help save money by recreating their work product.
The user would need to complain of any missing emails before IT staff would attempt to find them. Exchange backups were only held for 6 months and then recycled according to some accounts. If those reports are accurate, then at best they would have been able to get a snap shop of her mailboxes back to Jan 2011 or there about. The retention policy didn't change until the IG investigation got underway.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3170845/posts?page=61#61
click on the ways and means committee link and scroll down to page 9 for IRS email policy explanation.
You got it wrong. The user did complain after her hard drive crashed. The hard drive crashed and was in the hands of the IT professionals way before the backups were destroyed.
Tell me what they recovered on her new drive? And why are we shifting focus to something that happened 3 to 6 months after her new hard drive was replaced? I repeat they had a good backup at the time of the crash. Why wouldn’t they recover the emails when they repaired her computer?
Read it. Her inbox might have been limited, but a backup existed until that limit. There is no way the backup was limited to internal communications. The only way the selective emails (emails to Obama Administration) to have disappeared off of the IRS server / backup is willful malfeasance.
The committee is asking the wrong questions. The archived storage on the computer was limited to Whitehouse communication only? No way.
I think most IT people would agree with the willful malfeasance and or gross negligence assessment. Trusting employees to print out email certainly wouldn't be my backup plan..
Turned out my question ended up getting the most incredulous answer one of the night. The commissioner said he did not know if they recovered her emails from the tapes or even if they tried. If they didn’t make an effort to restore her emails from the known good backup, it was because it is to complicated.
I watched weasel testify and could only take so much. He basically blamed lack of funding for the poor retention policy.
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