MS-102 Deploy and manage a Microsoft 365 tenant Practice Question
A user account was accidentally deleted 10 days ago. The administrator needs to restore the user's mailbox and OneDrive for Business content. Which method should the administrator use?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse the 30-day soft-delete retention with the ability to simply recreate the user account, or they assume that separate admin centers are required for mailbox and OneDrive recovery, when in fact the unified 'Deleted users' restore handles both.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Restore the user from the 'Deleted users' page in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
Microsoft 365 retains deleted user objects, including their Exchange Online mailbox and OneDrive for Business data, for 30 days in the 'Deleted users' list. Restoring the user from this page within the retention period automatically recovers the associated mailbox and OneDrive content without requiring separate tools or support requests.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Recreate the user account with the same name, and the data will be automatically restored.
Why it's wrong here
Recreating a user with the same display name or UPN in Azure AD generates a new immutable object ID, and Microsoft 365 ties all service data (mailbox, OneDrive, Teams) to that original ID. Because the original object is still in the soft-deleted state, the data is not automatically attached to the new account; you must explicitly restore the original object instead of recreating it.
- ✓
Restore the user from the 'Deleted users' page in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
Why this is correct
In the Microsoft 365 admin center, navigate to Users > Deleted users, locate the accidentally deleted user, and choose Restore. This is the supported self-service recovery path for soft-deleted user objects within the 30-day retention period, and it re-associates the user's existing Exchange Online mailbox, OneDrive for Business, and other workload data with the restored account.
- ✗
Use the Exchange admin center to recover the mailbox only.
Why it's wrong here
The Exchange admin center's mailbox recovery features only apply to accounts that already exist, because they operate on a mailbox tied to a valid user object. Since the user object itself was deleted, there is no organization identity to attach the recoverable mailbox to, and EAC cannot recreate a full Microsoft 365 user, so this approach is incomplete and unavailable in this scenario.
- ✗
Submit a support request to Microsoft to recover the deleted data.
Why it's wrong here
Opening a support request with Microsoft is not the standard procedure for a soft-deleted user because the Deleted users page provides the same restore capability without escalating. Support requests are reserved for cases like permanent deletion after the 30-day soft-delete period, data loss due to litigation hold issues, or complex hybrid identity restore scenarios; they are unnecessary here.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Microsoft 365 Tenant Setup
Key term
OneDrive for Business
OneDrive for Business is a cloud-based file storage and synchronization service from Microsoft, part of Microsoft 365, that lets users store, access, and share work files securely from anywhere.
Key term
Exchange Online
Exchange Online is Microsoft's cloud-based email, calendar, and contact hosting service that is part of the Microsoft 365 suite, allowing organizations to manage corporate messaging without maintaining their own mail servers.
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every MS-102 question from scratch — 241 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This MS-102 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the MS-102 exam.