Recovering emails in Outlook Express

[escapee]

If I make a backup of "My documents and settings" using the Backup and Restore Wizard, will my Outlook Express emails be backed up? I'm running XP Pro SP2.
Thanks,
Hank

[glc]

Yes, the mailboxes are stored within your profile.

[escapee]

Thanks GLC, but I couldn’t find my profile. I did follow this path: Documents and settings, USER, Application data, Identities, {41DAE9AE-B187-4189-99BC-F2C5009ED85D}, Microsoft, Outlook Express, and then what looks like my emails. There are 2 additional long numbers as above that also lead to Microsoft, Outlook Express, and then the emails.

My problem is I’m unable to restore the emails. The restore runs and appears to restore the emails but they aren’t there when I open Outlook Express. This is really discouraging. Do you have any idea what I am doing wrong?
Hank

[glc]

If you have configured Outlook Express in a new installation, the identity hexadecimal names are different. You are going to have to manually move the contents of each identity into the corresponding new identity.

[escapee]

Very informative information GLC.

I now have another problem. The 41DAE9AE-B187-4189-99BC-F2C5009ED85D} folder is empty now along with the other two folders with similar numbers and letters. The contents must be somewhere on my new installation. Do you think that will give me a problem later? If that is not a problem, I still have a chance of getting the emails back as I have another backup on a separate hard drive (without an operating system) that I might be able to manually move to the new installation. The problem here is I don’t know how to manually move the contents to the new installation.

I noticed the numbered and lettered folders in the new install have the same numbers and letters as the backup but they are also empty. This Identities folder also has one additional folder with similar numbers and letters that is empty.

If this exercise fails, it has still been worth it. I’ll know what not to do next time.

Hank

[Digitalic]

You won`t be able to simply restore the backed up .dbx files to your store folder. What you can do though is run a restore from your back up and only restore the directory containing the .dbx files to an alternate location on your hard drive. Create a folder and name it e-mail or something and restore them there. Once these are restored, start OE, click file\import\messages and navigate to the directory that you restored the files to.

[glc]

I'll also add a note - if you use a CD-R to back anything up, it will flag all files as "read-only" - after you restore or copy anything from the CD-R to the hard drive, the read-only has to be removed. With Outlook Express and many other programs, read-only files will prevent the program from functioning. You can do this quickly by going into the folder properties and removing read-only from the whole folder.

[escapee]

OK guys thanks, let me work on this for a while and I’ll post my success or failure. This is one great forum! Hank

[escapee]

Well, the hard drive with the untouched backup had the numbered and lettered folders mentioned above but they were empty. I fully understand what I had to do but now the outlook express folders are gone. Don’t know why they were not on the external hard drive and have no idea where they went when they disappeared from the C drive partition backup. Just hope they don’t give me a problem sometime in the future. I also ran searches on all 3 drives using all criteria I could think of but no email files showed up. It really bugs me that they were on C drive partition but now can’t be found anywhere. At least I learned how to restore my emails next time.

Thanks guys for all the help and education. Hank

[glc]

Try searching ALL your drives and media you used in this process for "inbox.dbx" and see if the right one pops up. Make sure you view hidden and system files and unhide extensions for known file types in your folder options.

[Dodge7]

Yeah, try searching for "inbox. dbx} and "*.dbx" They can be hard to find, even you think you know where to look.

I think MS has to fix this mess. I saved my inbox, sent, and saved email files. I put this in a folder, and tried to import the files directly from the folder. It doesn't work.

I finally was able to do it by finding where the existing inbox, ect reside3s and pasting and replacing the old files I wanted. Good thing it was from Outlook Express 6 to Outlooks Express 6.

[Dodge7]

Sorry search for "indbo.dbx" and"*.dbx" They might be onthe drives where you don't know to look

[escapee]

That did it, got’em all back, loaded in their original folders and sub-folders. I found them by running a search on “inbox.dbx”. They were on the C drive in a hidden folder. I guess they got to the C drive when I tried to restore them directly to Outlook Express from the backup. Anyway, I can’t thank you three guys enough for the help you gave me. No way could I have done this without you. An additional thanks to GLC for his last suggestion that did the trick. Hooray!!

Hank