Backup Plan and Qus from other threads

I have been remiss.

There are two and a half years worth of e-mails with plenty of attachments
sitting in my outlook express 6.

I am required to save them for 10 years.

I have now saved them into folders for six month periods:

May – Dec 03 = 62,000 kb

Jan – June 04 = 216,000 kb

Jul – Dec 04 = 181,000 kb

Jan – Jun 05 = 204,000 kb

Jul – Dec 05 = 298,000 kb

Sometimes I have to go back and use some of the old messages.

I have read Mr. Hagen’s comments in another thread that “Keep user created
folders under 100MB�, so I guess I will have to divide the above into smaller
folders.

1. Any suggested strategies for backing them up and storing them somewhere
else?

2. Any suggestions regarding whether to use an online storage system such as
xdrive.com, buy another hard drive and connect it to my computer, or use cds.

3. In another thread Dguess Wrote: Create a Backup folder. Copy the dbx file
(drag and drop is a lot faster) from the message store folder to the backup
folder. That's all that is needed.

Don’t I also have to back up the folder, inbox, sent items dbx files?

If I back up each of the folders I want, plus the above three, can I do so
to different compact disks and then if I need the files, can I copy each
folder from those disks to a single folder and somehow get outlook express to
let me search each folder for the message I want?

4. Does the program at oehelp.com allow me to backup only selected folders?

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

5. The inside outlook express process for backing up selected folders at
http://www.insideoutlookexpress.com/...al.htm#folders

appears to copy the inbox, outbox and folder dbx files along with the folder
I wanted to back up.

If I have 5 folders to back up, does it add the three above to each? Is that
a problem when later I want to search them for particular messages?

6. Should I just upgrade my version of windows xp and use its backup
program? Would it allow me to backup the above selected files rather than
everything in my outlook express mail folders?

7. Should I just switch to Outlook? Would it allow me to backup the above
selected files rather than everything in my outlook express mail folders?

8. Yes, my plan is to back up and remove files more frequently. I think I
should keep six months around on my computer because my customers often
require me to refer to old e-mails.

Thank you very much for any guidance you may be able to provide.

The 100 MB limit is a suggestion. The larger the DBX files get, the
more prone to corruption they are.

But that really applies to active DBX files (ones that are getting
modified). If you are using the file simply as a static archive, and
have presumably made a backup copy, that's not a major concern.

For archiving purposes, you can simply copy the desired DBX files to
another medium. CDs are suitable You can restore a single DBX file as
needed.
How to import a single mail folder (*.dbx)
http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/how.htm#importdbx
For an alternate description, see the last paragraph he
http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx

Another option is to convert the DBX files to EML files. You get one
EML file per message. You can then copy the EML files to CD. EML files
can be read directly from CD by double clicking to open in an OE message
reading window. No restoring required. One of the following programs
would be useful for creating the EML files.

DBXtract - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx
DBXpress - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx
DBXtend - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtend/Default.aspx

OEX Enhancements - Import/Export/Resend/Duplicates/Attachments, etc.
http://www.oehelp.com/OEX/Default.aspx

DbxConv - DBX to MBOX/EML converter by Ulrich Krebs
http://people.freenet.de/ukrebs/dbxconv.html

Outlook Express Extraction
http://macallan.club.fr/index.htm



--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm


"Visitor" wrote in message
...
I have been remiss.

There are two and a half years worth of e-mails with plenty of
attachments
sitting in my outlook express 6.

I am required to save them for 10 years.

I have now saved them into folders for six month periods:

May - Dec 03 = 62,000 kb

Jan - June 04 = 216,000 kb

Jul - Dec 04 = 181,000 kb

Jan - Jun 05 = 204,000 kb

Jul - Dec 05 = 298,000 kb

Sometimes I have to go back and use some of the old messages.

I have read Mr. Hagen's comments in another thread that "Keep user
created
folders under 100MB", so I guess I will have to divide the above into
smaller
folders.

1. Any suggested strategies for backing them up and storing them
somewhere
else?

2. Any suggestions regarding whether to use an online storage system
such as
xdrive.com, buy another hard drive and connect it to my computer, or
use cds.

3. In another thread Dguess Wrote: Create a Backup folder. Copy the
dbx file
(drag and drop is a lot faster) from the message store folder to the
backup
folder. That's all that is needed.

Don't I also have to back up the folder, inbox, sent items dbx files?

If I back up each of the folders I want, plus the above three, can I
do so
to different compact disks and then if I need the files, can I copy
each
folder from those disks to a single folder and somehow get outlook
express to
let me search each folder for the message I want?

4. Does the program at oehelp.com allow me to backup only selected
folders?

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

5. The inside outlook express process for backing up selected folders
at
http://www.insideoutlookexpress.com/...al.htm#folders

appears to copy the inbox, outbox and folder dbx files along with the
folder
I wanted to back up.

If I have 5 folders to back up, does it add the three above to each?
Is that
a problem when later I want to search them for particular messages?

6. Should I just upgrade my version of windows xp and use its backup
program? Would it allow me to backup the above selected files rather
than
everything in my outlook express mail folders?

7. Should I just switch to Outlook? Would it allow me to backup the
above
selected files rather than everything in my outlook express mail
folders?

8. Yes, my plan is to back up and remove files more frequently. I
think I
should keep six months around on my computer because my customers
often
require me to refer to old e-mails.

Thank you very much for any guidance you may be able to provide.

You also need to backup frequently, as in OE the message store is fragile
and very susceptible to destruction. If you are required to keep messages,
then you should do this daily.

steve

"Visitor" wrote in message
...
I have been remiss.

There are two and a half years worth of e-mails with plenty of attachments
sitting in my outlook express 6.

I am required to save them for 10 years.

I have now saved them into folders for six month periods:

May – Dec 03 = 62,000 kb

Jan – June 04 = 216,000 kb

Jul – Dec 04 = 181,000 kb

Jan – Jun 05 = 204,000 kb

Jul – Dec 05 = 298,000 kb

Sometimes I have to go back and use some of the old messages.

I have read Mr. Hagen’s comments in another thread that “Keep user created
folders under 100MB�, so I guess I will have to divide the above into
smaller
folders.

1. Any suggested strategies for backing them up and storing them somewhere
else?

2. Any suggestions regarding whether to use an online storage system such
as
xdrive.com, buy another hard drive and connect it to my computer, or use
cds.

3. In another thread Dguess Wrote: Create a Backup folder. Copy the dbx
file
(drag and drop is a lot faster) from the message store folder to the
backup
folder. That's all that is needed.

Don’t I also have to back up the folder, inbox, sent items dbx files?

If I back up each of the folders I want, plus the above three, can I do so
to different compact disks and then if I need the files, can I copy each
folder from those disks to a single folder and somehow get outlook express
to
let me search each folder for the message I want?

4. Does the program at oehelp.com allow me to backup only selected
folders?

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

5. The inside outlook express process for backing up selected folders at
http://www.insideoutlookexpress.com/...al.htm#folders

appears to copy the inbox, outbox and folder dbx files along with the
folder
I wanted to back up.

If I have 5 folders to back up, does it add the three above to each? Is
that
a problem when later I want to search them for particular messages?

6. Should I just upgrade my version of windows xp and use its backup
program? Would it allow me to backup the above selected files rather than
everything in my outlook express mail folders?

7. Should I just switch to Outlook? Would it allow me to backup the above
selected files rather than everything in my outlook express mail folders?

8. Yes, my plan is to back up and remove files more frequently. I think I
should keep six months around on my computer because my customers often
require me to refer to old e-mails.

Thank you very much for any guidance you may be able to provide.

Thank you for your help. I have been backing up manually. Now I have
downloaded outlook express quick backup. It seems to by default back up all
of my dbx files into the backup folder.

That folder will then be too big to copy to a cd.

Is there a way to have it back up individual dbx files to a specified folder
so the resulting folder may be small enough to back up to a cd?

Alternatively, may I back up a specified dbx file directly to a cd?

Somewhere I got the impression that I had to back up some additional files
as well as the specific dbx in order later to be able to use the backed up
dbx if my original hard disk died. Is this correct?

Hi Visitor,

The important DBX files are the ones for the folders and the master indexing
file, Folders.dbx. Folders.dbx is required for the import process to work.
All files available in the OE message store are not (necessarily) required
unless there are messages you do not want to lose in any of the folders. It
would be possible to split the files onto two disks and combine them in a
Windows folder when importing. The files on the CD will be given the
read-only attribute. When the files are moved to a hard drive be sure this
attribute is not set.

--
Tim K.
aka Kuay Tim
MS-MVP - Outlook Express
Lynnwood, WA
*
"Visitor" wrote in message
...
Thank you for your help. I have been backing up manually. Now I have
downloaded outlook express quick backup. It seems to by default back up all
of my dbx files into the backup folder.

That folder will then be too big to copy to a cd.

Is there a way to have it back up individual dbx files to a specified folder
so the resulting folder may be small enough to back up to a cd?

Alternatively, may I back up a specified dbx file directly to a cd?

Somewhere I got the impression that I had to back up some additional files
as well as the specific dbx in order later to be able to use the backed up
dbx if my original hard disk died. Is this correct?

You can back up only a few of the dbx files if you want and then use the
method in the last paragraph here (www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx) to import the
backed up files (after clearing the read only attribute).

Also, if you zip the files, they get much much smaller.

Make sure when you burn to CD or DVD that you set it to verify the written
data. Sometimes the burn fails and then you don't have saved what you
thought you did.

steve

"Visitor" wrote in message
...
Thank you for your help. I have been backing up manually. Now I have
downloaded outlook express quick backup. It seems to by default back up
all
of my dbx files into the backup folder.

That folder will then be too big to copy to a cd.

Is there a way to have it back up individual dbx files to a specified
folder
so the resulting folder may be small enough to back up to a cd?

Alternatively, may I back up a specified dbx file directly to a cd?

Somewhere I got the impression that I had to back up some additional files
as well as the specific dbx in order later to be able to use the backed up
dbx if my original hard disk died. Is this correct?