Windows Me forum: Outlook express! mail disappeared

No. I'm using symantic. I went to McAfee site and downloaded dbxtract.exe and used it. It ran all night, but only recovers txt files. I didn't have any problems when I was using netscape to transfer mail files in the Netscape folder. I use to back up my mail and could transfer at will. But Outlook won't let me do it. If I could just access those dbx files to somehow transfer them back to my running inbox I would be home free.
There's 98mgs of stuff in there. Surely there must be some way to get to them.
thanks,
r

Space is not a problem. I have over 400 mgs in my deleated folder as well. Once I get this problem out of the way, I will compact. What I need now is to learn how to acess these files. Netscape was never a problem, but with MS, although it has saved something in those folders it wont let me in. Are there any programs out that will let me get inside? Any help will be most appreciated.
Thanks,
r

The view is to all messages.
r

my mail is just fine now and it was fine immediately after losing my inbox. Outlook carried on as though nothing happened. Everything is and was back to normal except for the loss of my mail. I was thinking of installing firefox or netscape and try to import those dbx files. Surely there must be someway to open these. In my deleated folder there is over 400 mgs of "something" in there. I have never intended to keep all that deleated material, but that is where it goes when I deleate it from my outlook. Can I just go in and deleate the folder and will an empty "deleated" folder come back uP?
thanks.
r

First open OE...go to Tools/Options/Advanced (or Maintenance). Put a check mark in "empty deleted upon exit". That will get rid of the 400MGs you have in that Deleted Items.DBX file completely once you close down OE. So now click Apply, OK, and close OE.

Now create a new folder on your desktop and call it OLDMAIL.

Now go to Search and type in *.dbx for the file name area, click Advanced Search, and put a check mark in 'look in hidden, system, and subfolders'. Now click Search Now/Find Now.

Once all the .dbx files show up, click Edit, click Select All, so they are all highlighted, and right click and drag them to the new folder you created on the desktop, and choose COPY HERE.

Once the copy is done, open OE again, go to File, Import, Messages, Mail and use the browse button to get to the new folder on your desktop and click it open, click OK.

All your mail will come back into view immediately.

The reason you couldn't import it before was because you can't import mail that is located in the same folder as the destination you want to bring it to as OE believes it's already there and will ignore you.

Once you put the files somewhere else, it will treat it all as good stuff to bring in.

TONI

won't be found as a viable source to import from....you will still have to copy them to a temp folder on your desktop first and then import from that location instead.

TONI

Same thing happened to me. Here's what to do.
1. Create a new profile in Outlook Express.
a) Go to FILE / Identities / Add new identity
b) Follow the prompts, but you don't need to actually type in the imap settings or anything technical. The goal is just to get a folder in the folder. For purpoes of instructions, let's say you called the new identity BOB.
2. Go to START / Explore / HP Administrator (or whatever identity you're using) / Local Settings / Application Data / Identities / - you will then see two long folder names - mine is {D190EE07-1887-4595-8F62-6253114299D2}
3. Doubleclick on one of the folders and keep doubleclicking on the folders that appear until you see a bunch of files ending with ".dbx." You will be doing the same thing for the other folder.
4. In one of the folders, "inbox.dbx" will be a big file reflecting lots in it. In the other, "inbox.dbx" will be small, because it's a new identity and there's no e-mail in its inbox yet.
5. Copy the big inbox.dbx file (don't move it - copy it) to your desktop.
6. Now copy that big inbox.dbx file into the folder that had the small inbox.dbx file.
7. Now get into Outlook Express and click on FILE / Import / Messages
8. You'll be asked to pick your version of OE. I have Outlook Express 6.
8. You will see two identities listed - MAIN IDENTITY and the other one. In these instructions I said let's use BOB. So click on BOB, or whatever you called the other identity.
9. Click OK. Browse. When you get to the place where you see inbox.dbx, click on it and go ahead and import. (If you have local folders in your e-mail, such as 'vacation' and 'warranties,' and 'family,' etc., you are in the wrong folder. You didn't pick the correct identify.
10. Presuming you were in the correct identity - the only you created for just this purpose, your old e-mail should be back.

Hope this works for you.