Hotmail users lose entire email inboxes, Microsoft restores them 5 days later

by Sebastian Anthony on January 3, 2011 at 06:50 AM

Hotmail users have only just had their email inboxes restored after a few long, worrying days. The data loss began at the end of December, with the Windows Live Solution Center spawning over a thousand "help, my inbox is missing!" threads, and only now is posting beginning to dry up. The exact number of affected users is unknown, but could easily be in the millions.

Microsoft hasn't yet stated the cause of the massive data loss, but considering some users lost email inboxes spanning years, we should be glad that adequate backups were kept. The data loss occurred around December 28, and it affected everything in Hotmail accounts, including sent items. Some users reported that the only message they had been left with was the classic "Welcome to Hotmail" email.

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http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/03/hotmail-users-lose-entire-email-inboxes-microsoft-restores-them/

Update:
ZDnet reports that Microsoft officials posted the following to the Hotmail support forums:

"We have restored the e-mails to those who were [a]ffected. If you are still missing your emails, please post your issue here (please note that you need to be logged in to the windowslivehelp.com site to be able to post) with as much detailed information as possible (How much wasn't restored, and any specifics that you may have). We sincerely apologize and thank you for your continued patience."

Tags: email, hack, hotmail, inbox, Microsoft, security, top, web