I had to reactivate my 8830 after a wipe. Now, I am getting new e-mail, but all my e-mail history is gone. I have the messages in Outlook on my pc, but cannot get them to come down to my handheld.

Any ideas?

I have searched and searched for resolution.

When you activate a Blackberry you only get the last 5 days/200 messages (by default).

There are 2 ways to get the old messages back:
1 - Restore them from a backup (do you have a backup?)
2 - Email them to your self again.

Unfortunately BlackBerry does not support this due to the way it was originally architected. A reactivation only prepopulates a certain number of prior mails, beyond that it is not possible to restore a history or load from a backup.

Doesn't restoring from a backup wipe them out when you reconcile since the BES doesn't know about them? Or perhaps this only happens if you delete the account off the BES and re-add? I thought I had reports of restoring from a backup after wipe/reactivate not working for some of our users.

Not if you do an Advanced restore of just the messages (from a Desktop Manager backup). I've done it many times when I switch devices.

I do not have a back up. I don't even get the 5 days / 200 messages.

Then your BES Admin changed the default 'pre-population'. Or the Activation didn't work correctly.

I've reactivated devices and had that happen, and what I do is wipe the device, remove/readd on the BES, and then reactivate the device. This will for sure pull in the pre-population stuff (assuming they haven't changed the default, that is).

There is a reghack to prepopulate messages when reactivating a device on an existing account:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Research In Motion\BlackBerry Enterprise Server\Agents]
"ForceMsgPrepopOnActivation"=dword:00000001
"ForceMsgPrepopDays"=dword:0000000e
"ForceMsgPrepopMessages"=dword:000002ee

The high limits for this hack are 14 days or 750 messages. (in hex in the above entries)

Since I am still a novice, how do I do registry hack? on device?

The pre-population doesn't require a registry hack - it's a property of the BES that is set within the Blackberry Manager console.

The BES Admin has to set it.

If you don't know how to hack the registry, DON'T DO IT! One minor foul up and your entire operating system goes POOF.
Then you'll wish you only had 5 days of messages.

Since our BES admin is new, where is it located?

BES Manager | Choose Server | Server config tab | Edit Properties| messaging Option | Prepopulation by age and count

There is a clear problem if your "Bes admin is new" and he/ she is not aware of that feature.....BB KB or search this forum. Also, he too should join this forum

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8830/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

I was not saying they did not know feature. Just wanted to verify. Besides if I got my email history when I first activated I would assume it did not change. However when I reactivated I lost the history

Allow me clarify..

Existing user + new device = prepopulation

Existing user + same device (wiped) = no prepopulation

Existing user + same device (wiped) + remove/readd on BES = prepopulation

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8830/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

We are discussing your last scenario. We wiped device and removed and readded user. No prepopulation. Is there a timing issue? Wait period after readd before you reactivate?
Thanks

Should not be a timing issue. Not sure why it's not working for you - I do this all the time for my users.

What version of BES do you have? And is it Exchange, Domino, or (shudder) Groupwise?

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8830/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Exchange on 4.2

You mean 4.1 SP2?