All topics are deleted if you delete the top-level Topics area of a SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal site (838118)

If you delete the top-level Topics area on the Home page of your Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal site, all topics that are located in the subareas and in the listings of the top-level Topics area are also deleted. After you delete the top-level Topics area, the Topics section and the list of topics are no longer displayed in the left pane of the portal site. You cannot reverse the deletion.

To work around this behavior, use one of the following methods:

To recover the data, restore the data from your most recent backup.
To create a new Topics area that uses a multi-level view similar to the view that the original Topics area used, configure the area template to use the Contents area template. To do this, follow these steps:
1. On the navigation bar, click the name of the new area that you created. For example, if the name of the new area is Topics, click Topics.
2. Click Change Settings, and then click the Page tab.
3. In the Subarea Templates section, click All subareas will use the following template, click Contents area Template, and then click OK.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information about how to work with areas in SharePoint Portal Server 2003, see the "Working with Areas" section in Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Help. To view SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Help, click Help on the portal site Web page, and then click SharePoint Portal Server Help Table of Contents. Or, see the User's Help.chm file that is located in the Docs folder in the root of the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 CD.

For more information about SharePoint Portal Server 2003, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://office.microsoft.com/home/office.aspx?assetid=FX010909721033