Email messages disappeared

We use Outlook Express for our email. We have one main account,(my wife's) and four subaccounts (the rest of the family). This morning, my wife booted up the computer and went to check her email. All of the messages in her Inbox had disappeared. She had about 100 or so that she hadn't got around to moving to other folders. Unfortunately, there was some important stuff there, like some photos. We checked everybody else's accounts and all of our folders, to no avail.

Obviously, I'm wondering how this could have happened. Is there any way to retrieve these messages? She knows they were there yesterday, so could using System Restore to go to a restore point prior to yesterday help?

Thanks in advance for any help with this perplexing problem.

 

If you don't find a duplicate "inbox.dbx" (a duplicate will have the "1" in its name), it might be the View settings in OE. It's simple enough to find out.

In your wife's identity, select the Inbox then click on View>Current View and see if "Show All Messages" is checked. If not, click on it to select it.

If it is checked, toggle it off and on (click on it to uncheck it, close OE, reopen OE and recheck "Show All Messages ") to see if OE just needs a kick in the settings. If that doesn't work, then it's not a View setting problem.

 

I tried using Windows Explorer to navigate to the files, but I'm having trouble following the path Steve Jones suggested. I go to C:\Documents and Settings\Owner, but that is a far as I get. I can't find Local Settings to go any further.

Regarding Miz's suggestion, Show all messages is checked. I can't seem to uncheck it to toggle it on and off. When I click on it, it closes, I close Outlook Express and reopen it, but it is still checked.

 

A further development. I checked Show Hidden Files and Folders and now I can sucessfully navigate to my wife's files. There is a second Inbox there called Inbox (1) as well as the original Inbox. Now I'm trying to do the File>Import thing, but it won't let me. I get a message saying that "the specified message store could not be opened. It may be in use by Outlook Express." That makes sense to me, as I am in Outlook Express in her identity to try to do this.I thought about trying to import her messages into another family member's identity, but there doesn't seem to be a way to limit the import to just her original Inbox. If I try to import all of her messages into, let's say, my identity, then import them back to her identity, it seems that I would also then be importing all of my stuff to her as well, as the procedure doesn't seem to allow one to limit the folders within an identity to send.

I hope this makes some sense. My continued thanks for assistance with this.

 

Try this: With Outlook Express closed, open Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer) since it's easier to move files around than in the My Computer view. Then find her inbox.dbx file (the one without the (1) ) and move it somewhere else...into My Documents is fine. Just remember where you put it.

Then try importing the messages from it into your wife's identity.

I recommend you drag it into it's new folder by holding down the right mouse button, not the left. When you drop it into the new folder, a menu will pop up where you can choose Move, Copy or Cancel. Choose Copy. That way, if something goes wrong during the copying process, you'll still have the original to try again. Also, using the right mouse button gives you the option to cancel if you accidently drop it into the wrong folder. That's saved me more than once.

 

I tried to follow Miz's advice, but it's not working out. I drag/copy the Inbox to My Documents, but when I go to the Import function in Outlook Express, I can only navigate to My Documents. What I mean is the individual files in My Documents, including the .dbx Inbox file I need to get to is not visible. I can see it if I'm in Windows Explorer and go to My Documents, just not in the Outlook Express Import function.

Regarding Steve's latest post, no, I don't have McAfee. I have Norton.

Hoping for a solution. Thanks for the help so far.

 

Just click on My Documents as the folder to import from. If the inbox.dbx file you put there is "importable" (that is, not corrupt), OE will find it and import it.