That's good! Now we are talking about the Outlook Express Inbox? Who your
mail server is, is not important unless you have a separate Inbox for that
program.

Follow these instructions carefully. Since you have compacted more than
once, you may have more than one bak file to choose from. If you hover the
mouse pointer over it, you should see the date and time it was created. Make
your choice accordingly.

You may want to print this part out so you can refer to it while you do the
restore process. Read it three times! Take your time and you should be OK.

~~~

All e-mail items may be missing when you start Outlook Express 6 Service
Pack 1:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918069

To restore a bak folder to the message store folder, first locate the
Message Store in Windows Explorer.

In OE: Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the location
of your Outlook Express files. Press the Tab key to highlight the folder
location, then Ctrl+C. Close OE, then Start | Run | Ctrl+V will put the
location in the box - Click OK and you'll see the OE files. Otherwise, write
the location down and navigate to it in Windows Explorer.

In WinXP, the dbx files are by default marked as hidden. To view these files
in Windows Explorer, you must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under
Start | Control Panel | Folder Options Icon | View, or in Windows Explorer |
Tools | Folder Options | View.

In Windows Explorer, click on the dbx file for the missing, or empty, folder
and drag it to the Desktop. It can be deleted later once you have
successfully restored the bak file. Minimize the Message Store.

Open OE and, if the folder is missing, create a folder with the *exact* same
name as the bak file you want to restore but without the .bak. Eg: If the
file is Saved.bak, the new folder should be named Saved. Open the new folder
and then close OE. If the folder is there, but just empty, continue on to
the next step.

First, check if there is a bak file already in the message store. If there
is, and you removed the dbx file, go ahead and rename it to dbx.

If it isn't already in the message store, open the Recycle bin and right
click on the bak file for the folder in question and click Restore. Open the
message store back up and change the file extension from .bak to .dbx. Close
the message store and open OE. The messages should now be back in the
folder.

If the messages are successfully restored, you can go ahead and delete the
old dbx file that you moved to the Desktop.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"lindagig" wrote in message
...
woohoo! that worked. the compact message is gone now and everything
compacted completely. now ... how do i restore my inbox from yahoo?

thanks for your help.

"Bruce Hagen" wrote:

OK. Do this first, and restart your machine. See if the compact prompt
does
not show up. If that is good, we'll see about getting the lost messages
back.

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything
until
the compacting is completed.

If you get it the habit of compacting before the 100th closing, (i.e.
once a
week, or so), you will never see the prompt again.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"lindagig" wrote in message
...
hi thanks for the question. i went from SP2 to SP3. i am continuing
to
get
the compact prompt after it compacted and lost my inbox.

i'm pretty sure the compact process stopped and didn't stall ... but
i'm
not
100% positive about that.

thanks for your help

"Bruce Hagen" wrote:

Did you have SP2 prior to SP3, or did you go from SP1 to SP3? The
compact
prompt is not new to SP3.

Do you continuously get the compact prompt even after you have
compacted?
You may have two different problems.

Did the compact process stall on Folders.dbx, or did it continue to
the
end?

There are a few things to do. Please answer all of the above questions
first, and I'll get you going in the right direction.

I'll be here for 3 hours more tonight at least.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"lindagig" wrote in message
...
last week i downloaded the service pack 3 update for windows.
immediately
after downloading this, i got a message from outlook express that it
was
necessary to compact my files. i allowed this to happen and lost
all
of
my
inbox.

now, when i boot up my computer and also when i open or shut down
outlook
express, i get the message to compact the messages.

microsoft support wants me to pay for technical support on this and
i
can't
understand WHY since it was their download which caused this
problem.
anyone
else having the same problem and know a fix?

also: how do i get my inbox back? it is still resident on yahoo.