[Chella]

Hi!

I have the following problem;

I use Windows XP SP2 with all the latest updates installed.
Outlook Express is the thing giving me headaches;
While auto compressing Outlook Express message folders, the PC stalled and after rebooting Most of my message folders are missing in the OE and the folders that are avl found empty.

I can view these the missed message folder(.dbx files) files in Windows Explorer but could not reintall into OE.

As sited in the other sites I couldn't find the .bak file of these in the recycle bin to restore.

Pls help...

Thanks in advance
KM Chellababu

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Hi Chella,

Have you solved your problem yet?

T.

[Throoper]

Hi Chella,

Have you solved your problem yet?

T.

[Chella]

Hi Thooper,

Very annoying.....Still struggling with the problem.
Yet to get help...

All my two years of mails are under ?????

Thanks for the concern....

Chella

[Throoper]

Hi Chella,

Open the OE Message Store folder (where the DBX files are located).
Make a quick backup of the DBX files by clicking Edit>Select all to highlight all the DBX files.
Then click Edit>Copy. Minimize the Message Store folder to the Taskbar.
On the Desktop, right click an empty area and click New>Folder on the menu.
Name this new folder Mailbackup.
Open Mailbackup and click Edit>Paste.
Copies of all the DBX files should appear in this folder. Check to make sure that there is a copy of Folders.dbx.
Close Mailbackup.

Bring the Message Store off the Taskbar.
With OE closed, find the Folders.dbx in the Message Store folder and Delete it.
Open OE and see what, if anything, is back. It may take a minute for the folders to re-index, so be patient.

Please post back with your results.

T.

[Chella]

Hi Throoper,

Thanks for your advice and very sorry for the delay in reply as I was out of town.

However I tried your steps but, found no results, bad luck...

Do you have any other way to solve this...

Thanks in advance.

Chella

[Throoper]

I had hoped it was just a corrupt Folders.dbx, but it appears it wasn't.
I'll assume when you made the backup, you didn't find any BAK files in the Message Store folder.
You could try doing an Import from the copies you made.

In OE:
File>Import>Messages.
Select OE6>Next.
Check Import from an OE6 Store directory>Next.
Click the Browse and select the Mailbackup folder on the desktop>OK>Next.
Select All Folders (Or pick the ones you want)>Next.
Let it run and hopefully everything will Import successfully.

If the copy of Folders.dbx is corrupted, the Import will fail, but it's simple enough to do and worth the effort.

If that doesn't work, the next step would be Recovery software.
GO HERE for a freeware version of DBXtract.
To use it, leave the defaults in the Action section (don't check Recover mode).
The Input should automatically find the Message Store and you set the Output to a new folder.
Anything it can recover will be saved as individual EML files that can be drag and dropped back into folders in OE.

Keep me posted.

T.

[Chella]

Hi Thooper,

Importing folder failed witha fail message "No messages can be found in this folder or another application is running that has the required files open.
Please select another folder or try closing applications that may have files open"
(tried after closing OE,& also tried from Mailbackup folder).

Used Dbextract program, but cannot find the extracted folder in the designated place.....

Its getting more and more on my toe....................

Chella

[Throoper]

Hi Chella,
Sorry about the delay getting back to you.
The DBXtract said it saved the EML's but you can't find them?
Do a search of your drive for *.eml files. That should locate where they went.


When you tried to Import from the backup folder on the desktop, how far did you get before you got the fail notice?
T.

[Chella]

Hi Throoper,

Have checked for eml files but there were none avl.

Got the failure notice after the entire process.... means after selecting the folder and pressing next.

Appreciate your support.

Chella

[Throoper]

When you did the Import, you did browse to the folder on the desktop that you put copies of the DBX files in?
I ask because that's the fail message you usually get when trying to Import from an active Message Store directory with OE open and using the files.
Also, in the Import window where you can select what folders to Import, were all the copies in the desktop folder listed and did you select all or just one?

[Chella]

Hi Throoper,

I did it with copying files from default OE mail folder into new folder and selected files from new folder for import...
Next I selected just one and upon fail notice I tried other files also to find the same result.

Chella

[Throoper]

Okay. If they displayed in the selection dialogue but failed to Import they are likely corrupted.

Try the DBXtract on the backups.

Save options: Recover Mode UNCHECKED
Input line: Browse to the desktop folder
Drop menu: Select the DBX to extract from
Output line: Create a new folder on the desktop and browse to that for the destination.

You should get a box telling how many messages have been extracted.

If you can recover anything, place them in their own folder named for the DBX they were extracted from.
Repeat until you've done all the DBX files in the backup.

Let me know if you have any success.

T.

Edited by Throoper, 22 February 2009 - 12:15 PM.