Gerald,
I'll give a sketch or summary here.
The .bak files (in your Recycle Bin, if you didn't already empty it) are
the backup copies of your Outlook Express folders. If you could google
.bak to .dbx or similar, it may become quite clear what you need to do
to restore them. It's complicated to explain it (and I'm running out of
time, and haven't had to do this for thirteen years).
It's quite well-known that mailbox folders are more likely to become
corrupted during compaction than at almost any other time, which is why
Microsoft introduced the backup feature whereby past copies of OE
folders are sent to the Recycle Bin as .bak files during compaction.
Using Windows Explorer, you could then copy (or cut and paste) one of
these .babk files to a location perhaps an empty spot on your desktop or
one on your hard drive that you can identify. There, in windows
Explorer, you can rename it with .dbx as the suffix instead of .bak, F2
key then edit. enter when done. Copy (or cut) the file, for pasting.
If you don't know the file path where the OE folder was originally
stored, you may find this out using the Store Folder... button in the
Maintenance Options therein.
that done, stay out of Outlook Express, and locate the corrupted OE
folder or file with windows Explorer or the Run dialogue: Delete (from
the file or list view) the corrupted folder; and paste the copied
content of your copied OE file/folder there.
Now, reopen Outlook Express, and check if it took. There is no guarantee
that it will work, and it is not the only way that might work. However,
googling will show you that this problem has been the bugbear of many OE
users in the past.
Some other points:
I would put all folders at the same level as the Inbox, so that the
Inbox does not have subfolders.
Another way to repair the missing .dbx files, is: Empty your Inbox of
existing messages and transfer them to some other folder you will
create or have created in outlook Express. Rename the .dbx file whose
messages you want to restore, OUTSIDE CLOSED Outlook Express, to
Inbox.dbx. Now, reopen Outlook Express. With luck, your new Inbox will
have the missing messages restored. Now, in outlook Express, you can
move those messages from your Inbox to another folder you will make or
have made for the purpose.
Repeat this process as often as necessary.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gerald Levy" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2014 12:11 PM
Subject: [JAWS-Users] Recovering Lost Outlook Express Messages
This is certainly a strange one. Yesterday, as I always do at the end
of the month, I performed a compact all folders procedure in Outlook
Express on my XP system. I have 82 folders in various categories
which hold all the messages I have decided to save. But for some
reason, all the messages in the last 12 folders on the list were
somehow permanently deleted, because they were all there before I
performed the compact all procedure. The first 67 folders appear to
be intact, and I did not lose any messages from them. Is there any
way to recover the lost messages from the last 12 folders? Or are
they gone forever? I already tried a system restore to no avail.
Thanks.
Gerald
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