This is really weird, at least to me. This morning my OE6 hiccupped and lost
one year's worth of messages in the inbox. Well no problem, I thought, I
backed up all my data Friday night. So I inpacked the inbox dbx file,
imported into OE6 - and all those messages were still gone! So I deleted
everything in the inbox and imported again. Still all gone!

Any ideas?

Thanks.

The Import process will fail unless you include Folders.dbx in the backup.

See the last paragraph her and the link within to restore individual dbx
files:
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#4

General precautions for Outlook Express:

Do not archive mail in default OE folders. They will eventually become
corrupt. 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.

After you are done, follow up by compacting your folders manually while
working *offline* and do it often.

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.

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

In Tools | Options | Maintenance: Uncheck Compact messages in background and
leave it unchecked. {N/A if running XP/SP2}.

And backup often.

Backup & Resto
http://www.insideoutlookexpress.com/backup/
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

"johng" wrote in message
...
This is really weird, at least to me. This morning my OE6 hiccupped and
lost
one year's worth of messages in the inbox. Well no problem, I thought, I
backed up all my data Friday night. So I inpacked the inbox dbx file,
imported into OE6 - and all those messages were still gone! So I deleted
everything in the inbox and imported again. Still all gone!

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Is this the method you used for backing up and restoring?
http://www.insideoe.com/backup/

BTW: I don't know how much a year's worth of messages is for you, but
you should know that Outlook Express was not designed for archiving. You
should keep the default mailboxes as small as possible and not let any
mailbox grow large. You should compact your folders when OE asks to do this.

This may help you recover your mail:
http://www.insideoe.com/problems/bugs.htm#mailgone

---
Ted Zieglar
"Backup is a computer user's best friend."

johng wrote:
This is really weird, at least to me. This morning my OE6 hiccupped and lost
one year's worth of messages in the inbox. Well no problem, I thought, I
backed up all my data Friday night. So I inpacked the inbox dbx file,
imported into OE6 - and all those messages were still gone! So I deleted
everything in the inbox and imported again. Still all gone!

Any ideas?

Thanks.