Sometimes things can go wrong during a mailbox migration which will cause a mailbox to be orphaned. Things like a network link going down or the migration hanging on "Saving changes to the directory". If you have to forcibly terminate the migration task, you may find yourself left with an orphaned (disconnected) mailbox on the destination server. Then, when you try to purge the mailbox, you may receive this message:

ID no: c1034ad6
The operation cannot be performed because this mailbox was already reconnected to an existing user.

Here are some of your options:

Try migrating the mailbox again to the same destination. Exchange should know the orphan exists from a failed mailbox move and will automatically purge it, and attempt the move again. This does not always not work though.

Another alternative, is use ESM to have a look at the mailbox store properties on the store with the disconnected mailbox. On the Limits tab, do you have a check mark next to "Do not permanently delete mailboxes and items until the store has been backed up"? If you do, try backing up the store and purging the mailbox again.

Here's the final option (which worked for me) if all else fails, and you should ensure you have a recent backup of your stores before doing this. Using ADUC, find the other mailbox in your organisation that has the same display name as your disconnected mailbox. Right click on the user and use the Exchange tasks wizard to delete the mailbox from that user. Now go back into ESM and run the cleanup agent on your stores, and both mailboxes will be in a disconnected state. You will then be able to purge the orphan you want to get rid of. Next you should simply be able to right-click on the remaining orphan mailbox in ESM and use the 'reconnect' option, and specify the user account the orphan belongs to.

Edit: One more method as suggested below is setting the "Keep deleted mailboxes" option to 0 days and then running the cleanup agent on that mailbox store. Judging by more recent comments this seems to do the trick. Thanks Mike!

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