Netscape/Thunderbird Interface?

I have received great help through this forum before (almost a year to the day!) and hope I can resolve my recurring issues with Netscape e-mail. Yesterday my old e-mails did the disappearing act again and this time I cannot get them re-integrated into the existing Netscape 7.02 that I had for my e-mail. There seem to be way too many folders with varying quantities of e-mails (no doubt due to having to set up accounts over the years when Netscape has perfomed the disappearing act!). I have tried to pinpoit the correct (or most applicable) folders to the local directory on server settings, but to no avail!

I have been back and forth for several hours now looking at the various old postings regarding this issue(s) as well as following recommendations on the numerous suggested links. I even downloaded T-Bird (which I have downloaded and pretty seamlessly integrated on my laptop) to replace Netscape, but it did not integrate into the old settings and instead, only left me with the Local Folder heading within which my two accounts existed, but were not listed (not visible until clicking view settings for this account).

E-mails are vital to both my wife's and my business and I cannot continue to waste all this time correcting and recorrecting ad nauseum as these programs undermine themselves!! All I want is a simple and reliable e-mail program. I believe that T-bird will be recommended and if so, how can I get it to integrate all old e-mails and the new ones I am (have) receiving today.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated!!! THANKS!

PS Using Netscape 7.02, Windows XP and I deleted all msf files in the mail folders.

 

In the case of Thunderbird, I never allowed the program to import my mail.
I preferred to do it the hard way, by copying and pasting the needed files.
It can get pretty complicated. But, I will outlined how I did it.
I set up my accounts, first, unchecking that horrenous Global settings box.
I call it horrendous, because it will lump all mail into a string into the Local folders. This may be good with some people, who have used this in other mail clients, but with up to twelve mail accounts, which I have, it would be a disaster. And, it seems that you got trapped into this.
It is important that you keep things separate, to the point that I recommend that you and your wife keep two individual profiles.
But, you can have your accounts in one profile. Since each account can have only one file with the same name, the old file should be renamed to avoid overwriting.
All this is just in general. Most important, to avoid future debacles, it would be good to realize that very large mail folders tend to roll over and die.
To my standards anything over 200MB is risky. I know of people who flirted with the GB range, and had all sort of problems.
It comes a time to think of a way to archive the mail , and not necessarily keep it on the hard drive.