OE did it's compacting routine, and while compacting the Sent Items folder,
crashed (this was on another person's computer, so I am not sure the error).
After starting up OE again, the Sent Items folder is only about 150K in
size, with 3 most recently sent messages in it. I know the Sent Items
folder had hundreds of messages in it, and was wondering if the compacting
process created a temp dbx file somewhere that I could recover from.

FWIW, I have OE-Mail Recovery and it did not find any more messages in the
Sent Items folder.

TIA.

-- Paul

The two most common reasons for what you describe is disruption of the
compacting process, (never touch anything until it's finished), and 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 using a fully patched version of XP/SP2, see:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918069/en-us

If not:

DBXpress run in 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 if you don't want to lose your messages 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.

And backup often.

Backup and Resto

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

http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx

http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx
--
Bruce Hagen
MS MVP - Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

"Paul" wrote in message
...
OE did it's compacting routine, and while compacting the Sent Items
folder, crashed (this was on another person's computer, so I am not sure
the error). After starting up OE again, the Sent Items folder is only
about 150K in size, with 3 most recently sent messages in it. I know
the Sent Items folder had hundreds of messages in it, and was wondering if
the compacting process created a temp dbx file somewhere that I could
recover from.

FWIW, I have OE-Mail Recovery and it did not find any more messages in the
Sent Items folder.

TIA.

-- Paul

This won't help your current problem, but for the futu

If you are running XP/SP2, make sure you have the patch at this site. With
it, a copy of your dbx files will be sent to the Recycle Bin. Should you
lose messages while compacting for whatever reason, you will be able to
restore them from this backup.

Patch KB918651:
http://tinyurl.com/mx3r2
--
Bruce Hagen
MS MVP - Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
The two most common reasons for what you describe is disruption of the
compacting process, (never touch anything until it's finished), and
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 using a fully patched version of XP/SP2, see:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918069/en-us

If not:

DBXpress run in 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 if you don't want to lose your messages 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.

And backup often.

Backup and Resto

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

http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx

http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx
--
Bruce Hagen
MS MVP - Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

"Paul" wrote in message
...
OE did it's compacting routine, and while compacting the Sent Items
folder, crashed (this was on another person's computer, so I am not sure
the error). After starting up OE again, the Sent Items folder is only
about 150K in size, with 3 most recently sent messages in it. I know
the Sent Items folder had hundreds of messages in it, and was wondering
if the compacting process created a temp dbx file somewhere that I could
recover from.

FWIW, I have OE-Mail Recovery and it did not find any more messages in
the Sent Items folder.

TIA.

-- Paul

No program that analyzes files will get the messages out of the files,
because they aren't there anymore.

You only recourse would be the exclusive extract from disk feature of
DBXpress, which will look at every disk cluster on the drive for messages.
See www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/

For the future see points 2 and 3 here (www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx) and
backup frequently as this happens a lot.

steve

"Paul" wrote in message
...
OE did it's compacting routine, and while compacting the Sent Items
folder, crashed (this was on another person's computer, so I am not sure
the error). After starting up OE again, the Sent Items folder is only
about 150K in size, with 3 most recently sent messages in it. I know
the Sent Items folder had hundreds of messages in it, and was wondering if
the compacting process created a temp dbx file somewhere that I could
recover from.

FWIW, I have OE-Mail Recovery and it did not find any more messages in the
Sent Items folder.

TIA.

-- Paul