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

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

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 300MB, 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.

Outlook Express Quick Backup (OEQB Freeware)
http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Marc" wrote in message
...

my msgs in my inbox disappeared. i have windows 2000. can someone
help me,
pls. thanks.