You said you put the Inbox on the Desktop. Did you? Have you found an
Inbox.bak file in the Recycle Bin or the message store? A copy of all your
files were made when you compacted and unless you deleted them, they are in
one of those two places. Did you read how to restore a bak file?

The two reasons for moving the Inbox.dbx file to the Desktop a

A: Because you cannot rename an Inbox.bak file to Inbox.dbx if there is one
in the message store already.

B: If you do not have a bak file, you can run DBXpress on the old Inbox.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"Fred the Ted" wrote in message
...
I follwed Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location I then went and pasted the file name into Start | Run.
This then opened OE and I clicked on the Inbox.dbx. I then thought that I
would try and look at the file to see if the missing emails were there.
I right clicked on the file to select a program and chose Word. BIG
mistake.
All the files now show up as Word which as you say is useless.
What can I try next please.

"Bruce Hagen" wrote:

You can't open any dbx file with word. That was not in my instructions.

Again. What folder?

Did you find a corresponding bak file for that folder in either the
Recycle
Bin or the message store?
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"Fred the Ted" wrote in message
...
I followed your notes and placed the dbx file on my desktop. I then
tried
to
open it up in Word but the file was too big. I use Windows XP.

"Bruce Hagen" wrote:

Which folder and where did you find it? Word can't read dbx files.
Tell
me
exactly what you have done up till now and what is your Windows
version.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"Fred the Ted" wrote in message
...
Hi Bruce, Thank you for responding. I've found the correct folder
and
moved
it to my desktop but it's a massive file and I can't open it in MS
word
as
it's more than 32mb. Any ideas?

"Bruce Hagen" wrote:

The two most common reasons for what you describe is disruption of
the
compacting process, (never touch anything until it's finished), or
bloated
folders. More on that below.

Why does OE insist on compacting folders when I close it?:
http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/why.htm#compact

Why Mail Disappears:
http://www.insideoe.com/problems/bugs.htm#mailgone

About File Corruption:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/...orruption.mspx

Recovery tools:

If you are running XP/SP2, or SP3, and are fully patched, then you
should
have a backup of your dbx files in the Recycle Bin, (or possibly
the
message
store), copied as bak files.

To restore a bak folder to the message store folder, first find the
location
of the Message Store.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location
of
your Outlook Express files. Write the location down and navigate to
it
in
Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it into Start | Run.

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

Close OE and then 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.

If you do not have bak copies of your dbx files in the Recycle Bin,
then:

DBXpress run in Extract From Disk Mode is the best chance to
recover
messages:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

And see:
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#4

A general warning to help avoid this in the futu

Do not archive mail in default OE folders. They will eventually
become
corrupted. Create your own user defined folders for storing mail
and
move
your mail to them. Empty Deleted Items folder regularly. Keep user
created
folders under 100MB, and Default folders as empty as is feasible.

Turn off e-mail scanning in your anti-virus program. It is a
redundant
layer
of protection that eats up CPUs, slows down sending and receiving,
and
causes a multitude of problems such as time-outs, account setting
changes
and has even been responsible for lose of messages. Your up-to-date
A/V
program will continue to protect you sufficiently. For more, see:
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#3

And backup often.

Backup and Resto

http://www.insideoutlookexpress.com/backup/

And this good one click backup program.

Outlook Express Quick Backup (OEQB):

http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"Fred the Ted" wrote in
message
...
I've just noticed that I've lost two months history of incoming
emails.
Last
Staurday O.E asked me if I wanted to compact my files and as
usual I
agreed.
I do have a lot of files (about 5 years worth) in my inbox so I
agreed.
I've
just noticed that OE has lost two months of files prior to
compacting.
I
need
these files back. Is there a way to get then back?