A few things to consider (apart from the age of the software as mentioned above):
- How did you set up the account in OE? As a POP3 account or IMAP? That determines if we're looking at a mirrored situation on a server and your system, or whether the e-mails just exist(ed) on your system.
- Did you check any 'view' settings? Is OE only showing newer e-mails, messages from the current year or something like that? It has been a while since I worked with OE, but perhaps a setting under 'view' or some sort of filter is set incorrectly for your purposes.
- Your messages are stored in a .dbx file somewhere in a folder. The location of that folder is either
C:\Windows\Application Data\Outlook Express\{GUID}
or
C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{GUID}\Microsoft\Outlook Express
depending on your Windows version. You can also click on Tools > Options > Maintenance > Store folder to find out where your storage folder is located.
Don't do anything to this folder! You may want to consider creating a backup copy in a safe location, but remember that you need to enable 'show hidden files' to be sure that you're copying everything.
{GUID} refers to a unique identifier consisting of letters and or digits. There may be more than one present. If so, you may have set up different 'identities' by accident or by design at some point.
There is a discussion about restoring folders based on backup files here:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...7-1c22a4e0f18d Check if there is anything in your recycle bin or somewhere in the store folder that could be useful (see explanation in that link).
Last but not least: please switch to a supported e-mail client ASAP!