SISSCO wrote:

searched for .pst files. nothing came up. I never backed up my
inboxes to .pst files before. Doesn't outlook save these messages
somewhere so I can retrieve them?

Your Inbox, Outbox, Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, and all other Outlook item
data are always kept in a PST. Backup has nothing to do with it. That PST
is usually in a hidden folder so unless you enable viewing hiddern files and
folders you won't see them.
--
Brian Tillman