OutlookExpress - Missing Emails!

[orchipalar]

Err...just discovered that 9 months worth of emails(1.8 Gig) have gone missing...from Inbox only of OutlookExpress...:eek:

The rest are unscratched...!

Has anyone encountered similar problem before?

Can it be recovered...IF so...what's best to do?

Please advice...Thanks a thousand.

[birdy]

Did you set the system to auto-achieve your old emails? If so, these emails has moved to achieved folder. Goto view folder and check for Achieved Folder. Your 1.8Gb emails should be there .. unless ur ownself or ur family members have deleted them accidentally. :eek:

[orchipalar]

Err...thanks Birdy:)...but nobody else uses the PC...emails prior to December 2005...are all untouched still in the Inbox...emails after September 2006 are also untouched still in the Inbox...

What's between them...cannot be found anywhere...

[jand]

just to prepare you for the worst, in my experience, OE gets very unstable when the folders get up to 1 gig in size. Sometimes you can repair the affected folder but you'd lose some emails.
The workaround I use is to put it into different folders (not subfolder of Inbox).
To repair, I create a new OE profile. Use the import function and point it to the old profile's email store folder.

The solution is not to use OE for large email volume. Outlook is more suited for that or you can give Thunderbird a try (not sure if it's affected by the same thing like OE).

[Ullas Sahadevan]

You should try looking up HELP in Outlook Express, on how to recover deleted emails. Also you can try posting your problem on a specialised discussion board like this http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/dgbrowser/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.inetexplo rer.ie6_outlookexpress&lang=en&cr=US

Also, there are a lot of software available on the net, which allow you to recover deleted mail from OE. But, use this at your own discretion. This ofcourse is the last option!

I agree with jand, that you should switch to Outlook in future if you need to handle a large volume of emails.

[birdy]

Err...thanks Birdy:)...but nobody else uses the PC...emails prior to December 2005...are all untouched still in the Inbox...emails after September 2006 are also untouched still in the Inbox...

What's between them...cannot be found anywhere...

Then it left to one thing to check - Archive. Please check your achieve folder. I don't think OE will become that unstable until all your emails lost. I am pretty sure it is in the achieve folder. Please search for the Archive folder. :)

Apologize for the mistake in my first email which I have wrongly used Achieve. :o

[orchipalar]

Err buddy...Orchi never had an Archive Folder...

[birdy]

Err buddy...Orchi never had an Archive Folder...
Ok..then now go to Tools >> Options >> Maintenance >> Click on Store Folder. Copy the link and paste in your Windows Explorer or 'Run' command line....see if you can find your old emails. ...

I hope this will help you....if this is still no avail.. you might want to ask god to help u oredi..... :p

[VeeJay]

Orchi, are you using mcafee as virus scanner for your emails?

[orchipalar]

Orchi, are you using mcafee as virus scanner for your emails?Err buddy...it's Grisoft AVG...

[VeeJay]

Then you are out of luck...buddy. I thought ...just maybe if you were using mcafee, then there is known bug there the antivirus would corrupt your dbx file, and ther is a remedy for it.

In this case, it seem to be microsoft problem...for OE you dont want to grow the mail size more than 1G, it will become unstable, and for Outlook 2003 morethan 2g, it will be come unstable....

In future you should backup your dbx and pst files...my only suggestions is, try to retrieve the lost dbx file using file recovery tools like scavenger, and if you are lucky you would find it...or else.....gone with the bytes....lor...

[blurrman]

hi orchi,

click start, find, type *.dbx in the text box, report the filenames found and size

[blurrman]

hi orchi,

how? manage to search for *.dbx?

[orchipalar]

Err buddy...sorry for being out of action since...

Orchi knows where the 'Inbox' files are located...n tried to export it to a separate folder created outside for the purpose of reimporting it back to Outlook Express...but precisely the missing ones...are still missing.

There is no trace of the missing mails in 'deletebox' or anywhere in the system...yet.

Now awaiting for a friend to send Orchi a license code for a software which he says could possibly scan to find the missing emails...n hopefully to recover them soon...

[blurrman]

when an email is being deleted, it is only marked as delete, the contain is still there, check your size of the dbx, if it tallys your 1.8G size, then all the emails are there...just need to get a tools to undelete them...