Resolved Outlook Express corrupted files.

A friend uses XP and Outlook Express as a mail program, and us trying to solve this problem is like the blind leading the blind.

A few days ago he sent a reply to an E-Mail and when the screen renewed, he had lost everything in his Inbox.

He told me he had been receiving the pop-up window about saving space by compressing files (The usual message and I can't remember exactly what the wording is) and he remembers this popping up but does not know if he ignored it or whether he clicked 'No', at about the same time as he sent the message.

When I checked his mail folder there was an Inbox.bak file in it which I presume contains his lost E-Mails, but I have been unable to recover anything from this.

Outlook Express and all other programs I have tried don't even recognize the file.

I would appreciate if someone could tell me if I am correct in assuming that this file does contain the lost e-mail, and, if so, how this can be recovered.

Many Thanks.

 

How to restore Outlook Express Emails. Hope this helps, or there are more tutorials here

kind regards,

 

Hi Pete:

Thank you for the reply.

Like you, it is many years since I last used OE. Sorry, I should re-phrase that, 'I have never used OE'.

Regardless, this friend is like many others who know even less about PC's than I do and therefore never saw any reason to make backups. After all, this is Microsoft and they would NEVER release a program that does not operate perfectly at ALL times.

Still, the file in his OE data folder contains the bak file I referred to - Index (1).bak I think was the exact name.

I added a new Folder called 'Test', renamed the bak file to Test.dbx and tried to import it, and nothing happened. The program just does not recognize it.

 

Hi again Pete, and, again, thank you for the reply.

I think you are correct because this person has (had) huneds, and huneds, and huneds, of messages in his Inbox. He has a Business and I don't think he had anything backed up for maybe more than 5 years.

The only thing I noticed is that over the years telling him that he MUST backup his information and finally giving up, was like when I stopped banging my head against a brick wall. That felt absolutely Grreeaaat.

Regardless, do you know if there is any way to recover the messages.

Cheers.