.dbx signature and offset?

[BFD Deadeye]

Hi all. My wife's computer recently crashed. For reasons I can't go into here, we believe it was most likely a hack job. I was able to do an over the top reinstall of XP, but her Documents, contacts, and emails were gone (never had that happen before after dozens of over the top reinstalls). I tried using Easy Recovery Pro, and it found 99% of her stuff. That's great. But, for some reason, this program doesn't look for .dbx (Outlook mail) files. I can customize it, and add my own file extensions, but here's where it goes over my head. In order to add my own file extension, I have to give it two values: 1) the 'signature' of the .dbx, and 2) the 'offset' of same. I'm no programmer, and have had no luck googling aforementioned. The Outlook she was using was Outlook Express, version 6.0.

We really need those emails, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

[glc]

Log in as the administrator, and enable system, hidden, and protected system files - and unhide extensions - in the folder options View tab. Then look under Documents and Settings for old profiles and explore them, you just might find them in there (try \username\application data\identities). If you do, in order to import them into the current OE identity, you will probably have to make note of the exact path, give your wife's login administrative privileges, log in as her, and take ownership of the old profile.

[BFD Deadeye]

I'll try that first thing in the morning, glc. Thanks a bunch. Does it matter if I have her drive slaved to my other computer? Can I just make those settings on my machine, and browse her hard drive?

Thanks again.

[glc]

Yes you can - and then you would want to get those files over to her machine, and then take ownership over there. You still have to import them into her identity in OE using Import from a store folder, you can't just copy them. If you use a CDR to get them over, remember to take off the read-only attribute once they are copied to her hard drive.

[BFD Deadeye]

Well, I tried what you said to no avail. It just isn't there. Maybe I would get an answer if I posted this in the Programming Forum? Thanks for the help.