Vital emails lost after reinstall of XP

[Dan29]

Hi guys,

I hope you can help.

I was forced to re-install XP Home Edition yesterday due to a corrupt file that prevented boot up or a system restore from being run. Although I have been able to access a lot of my data, it seems that my emails have been lost. This is a really big deal as I'd used my mail as a filing system for various contacts and data etc. It's vital that I get it back. Does anyone know if the mails may be stored in an obscure folder somewhere at all?

If anyone has any suggestions, it would be very much appreciated.

I should also mention that I do have a mirrored drive (which I removed during the reinstall to ensure that it wouldn't be effected in any way) but I have been unable to find the mails on here either.

Thanks once again and kind regards,

Dan.

 

[Dan29]

Bounce

 

[Elvandil]

What program for mail? Did you format the drive? Did you install over the top of an already existing installation?

Look in Program Files. Are all your programs still there and do your shortcuts exist and work?

 

[Dan29]

Hi,

Thanks Elvandil.

Basically we just reinstalled over an already existing installation. As far as I know, we didn't format the drive (in that we didn't a least take an option to do so).

In general it seems that all the data from the programs are there but we've had to reinstall the programs themselves in order to access that data. So for example all the photos etc. that were stored are still there. So I suppose this points to the drive not being formatted?

The main user profile that was used before the reinstall can still be found under the 'documents and settings' folder and all the shortcuts are present there, although the profile cannot be logged on to - most of the shortcuts don't work now though.

Thanks very much again,

Dan.

 

[Hughv]

You still haven't said what email program.

 

[Dan29]

Sorry Hugh,

Outlook Express 6 : )

 

[Hughv]

Your messages were in a location similar to this:
C:\Documents and Settings\Hugh\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{AEBF9D1A-48EA-4425-97A4-1D97A6A09D77}\Microsoft\Outlook Express
They are dbx files: folders.dbx, inbox.dbx, etc.
You may be able to find the old ones, but you may have overwritten them on the reinstall.
For the future look at the export dialog on the file menu, which allows you to backup before taking such actions.

 

[Rich-M]

If you didn't format, and again if we knew the brand of pc and hardware would better know the restore you did. I wouold bet you only have to open OE and "Import" Message Store" from Docs and settings, You, Local Settings, Application data, Identities, Microsoft, Outlook Express and there probably is more than one identities and one of them is your old mail.
You may have to go into Control panel, Folder Opti0ons, View and uncheck all the references to hiding folders to see a few of those.

 

[Dan29]

Hi guys,

Thanks very much indeed for the help. I really appreciate it : )

It looks like we do have a solution now : ) One of my Dad's friends was able to offer some advice (it's actually his business PC that's affected).

It seems that recovery was able to take place because the data was stored in a '.pst' file on the system. We couldn't just import this into Outlook though unfortunatley. From here though, it gets pretty complicated and I don't quite understand it I'm afraid. There's been a lot of copying individual files over and changing their locations and stuff. My Dad is still on the phone to his friend now but it does look like things are wrapped up.

Thanks very much indeed once again, it been a big help and is very much appreciated.

Take care,

Dan.

 

[Hughv]

Outlook and Outlook Express are two completely different animals.

 

[Rich-M]

Well glad you are getting it but .pst file is Outlook not Outlook Express so we didn't have the right answers to really help anyway, unfortunately though the import is similar or the simple acceptance of the store changed location.