I have been trying to help a friend today who has lost the contents of
an inbox, sent items and folder and subfolders from OE. He is still
able to send and receive messages. He runs Win XP and IE6. He
managed to locate some .bak files (I am not sure what these are but I
think they belong to OE) in the recycled bin but when he clicked
restore they did not reappear in Outlook Expess. He also tried system
restore but was not allowed on restart the message came up that
restore was not possible for the times that he had chosen. He ran an
anti virus and and anti spyware scan and although various worms and
high risk things were found and deleted, the files did not reappear in
OE.
Any advice gratefully appreciated.

Matthew

All e-mail items may be missing when you start Outlook Express 6 Service
Pack 1:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918069

To restore a bak folder to the message store folder, first locate the
Message Store in Windows Explorer.

In OE: Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the location
of your Outlook Express files. Press the Tab key to highlight the folder
location, then Ctrl+C. Close OE, then Start | Run | Ctrl+V will put the
location in the box - Click OK and you'll see the OE files. Otherwise, write
the location down and navigate to it in Windows Explorer.

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

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.

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.

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/

This is a great two click program:

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

wrote in message
oups.com...
I have been trying to help a friend today who has lost the contents of
an inbox, sent items and folder and subfolders from OE. He is still
able to send and receive messages. He runs Win XP and IE6. He
managed to locate some .bak files (I am not sure what these are but I
think they belong to OE) in the recycled bin but when he clicked
restore they did not reappear in Outlook Expess. He also tried system
restore but was not allowed on restart the message came up that
restore was not possible for the times that he had chosen. He ran an
anti virus and and anti spyware scan and although various worms and
high risk things were found and deleted, the files did not reappear in
OE.
Any advice gratefully appreciated.

Matthew