OE6 lost emails

[Meeb]

Hope someone can help me here....

My Outlook Express 6 asked me yesterday if I wanted to clean up files and I said yes, now today i find that a whole year of emails have gone, and thats the most recent ones... :eek:

I have used the help function and think i ahve found the files in a DBX format on documents and settings, trouble is I cannot import them back to OE, how do I retrieve these messages?

Thanks guys.

PS Windows XP Home.

[Conan the Librarian]

Have a look at FILE - IMPORT - MESSAGES. Just pulled 700 back from death in my own machine ten mins ago. PM me if I can help.


Conan

[Meeb]

Thanks Conan but that does not work.

If i try to import I get a pop up box saying either there are no files or the application is being used by Outlook, both which seem not right.

Will I need to purchase software such as DBXtract or DBXpress to recover these lost files? If i cannot even find the files on my system, will these even find them at all?

Very confused by this.... Help! :uhoh:

[BOAC]

'Clean up', AFAIK, simply removes those emails you have 'deleted' by putting into the 'deleted' folder. The emails are not actually removed from your disk until you 'clean up', but simply 'marked' as deleted, and therefore take-up disk space.

I thought that the only emails you would 'lose' therefore would be those you had 'deleted'?

When you try to import emails in OE, you cannot do that from the email store folder you are using at the time. Try copying the folders you found with the dbx files to another place and then 'import' from there. [Copy the whole {3w7476865etc} as it is] although I suspect that is your actual store folder that you have now 'cleaned up':(

My 'technique' is either to restore my backed-up files or to do an occasional (and before you 'clean-up'!!) copy of this folder as a separate back-up.......

...and you did click on 'Compact' when you did the clean-up, didn't you:{

[rotorcraig]

IIRC there is something a bit strange about the OE6 import routine, in that if you point to the folder called "mail" that contains the stuff you want to import you get the "no files or the application is being used by Outlook" message

You should actually point to the folder above, ie the one that contains the mail directory (which in turn contains the stuff you want to import).

That caught me out when I was trying to salvage a broken PC previously.

Also I just read another tip on the InsideOutlookExpress (http://www.insideoutlookexpress.com/faqs/how.htm#importdbx) website:

How do I import a single mail folder (*.dbx)?

Create a new folder in Outlook Express named "temp". Copy any message into the new Temp folder. Close OE and rename "Temp.dbx" in your OE store folder. Now copy the *.dbx to be imported into the store folder and rename it to "Temp.dbx". Open OE and rename the Temp folder if desired.
Hope that one of these works for you?

RC

[Meeb]

BOAC, thanks for that, but it still does not work... :confused:

I have tried as you suggest copying to an other location, but I still get the 'cannot open' dialog box appearing. And yes, I did click on clean up, but thats all, I did not delete the emails, but probably 100 or so just went in one click. :rolleyes:

rotor, sorry, but that does not work either....

Do you or anyone else know if DBXtract or DBXpress will find these lost emails, or are they gone forever?

[BOAC]

Running out of ideas here, Meeb! Some basic checks then:-

1) When you 'cleaned-up', there were options to 'compact', 'remove', 'delete' or 'reset' - which one did you choose? If other than 'compact' they is all gorn!

2) When you 'import', you do select the lower button, 'import from an OE6 store directory'? You then 'browse' to where the copy is, and 'drill down' to the last sub folder in {3w7476865etc} = 'Outlook Express'? before you 'go'?

If all the above, I have no further ideas unless you have backed up, and restore to 'another location' and try again.:confused: