Hello

I have a user with a huge Inbox and folders. When I first saw the message
store it was 10GB in total. I compacted and it came right down. But funny
things happened when I compacted. Sometimes while compacting saw a message
saying a program is using Outlook Express - then I think it skipped
compacting that file. Then strangely say from 15th Nov 2005 to 18th Jan
2006 messages would be missing!

Is it best to 'Go Offline' before compacting? Does this help?

Then something really dreadful happened. The customer wanted to see some
other emails from an old profile. So I imported messages, Import mail from
an OE6 store directory. This started imported 4000 messages. When it had
finished customer said say 'successfully imported message' but then had
problems so closed Outlook Express. It then would not load. I looked in
Task Manager and it seemed to be taking up 400MB of memory - may have read
it incorrectly - but a lot anyway. and eventually it loaded - but there was
nothing in the Inbox. Although I looked at the Inbox and it was 2GB in
size. so I decided to compact to see if that would help - it then became
tiny - actually so tiny that nothing was in it!

Of course the customer is hopping mad and wonders what he pays me for! He
brought me in to fix his problems not cause them! Any ideas on how to
recover the Inbox? Is it even possible?

Is there a limit to the size of the Inbox?

Why am I getting these problems? Bar leaving the country, what can I do?

Angus

"Angus Comber" wrote in message
...
Hello

I have a user with a huge Inbox and folders. When I first saw the message
store it was 10GB in total. I compacted and it came right down. But
funny things happened when I compacted. Sometimes while compacting saw a
message saying a program is using Outlook Express - then I think it
skipped compacting that file. Then strangely say from 15th Nov 2005 to
18th Jan 2006 messages would be missing!

Is it best to 'Go Offline' before compacting? Does this help?

Then something really dreadful happened. The customer wanted to see some
other emails from an old profile. So I imported messages, Import mail
from an OE6 store directory. This started imported 4000 messages. When
it had finished customer said say 'successfully imported message' but then
had problems so closed Outlook Express. It then would not load. I looked
in Task Manager and it seemed to be taking up 400MB of memory - may have
read it incorrectly - but a lot anyway. and eventually it loaded - but
there was nothing in the Inbox. Although I looked at the Inbox and it was
2GB in size. so I decided to compact to see if that would help - it then
became tiny - actually so tiny that nothing was in it!

Of course the customer is hopping mad and wonders what he pays me for! He
brought me in to fix his problems not cause them! Any ideas on how to
recover the Inbox? Is it even possible?

Is there a limit to the size of the Inbox?

Why am I getting these problems? Bar leaving the country, what can I do?

Angus





It's best to not have near 10 gig of messages, I'm suprised OE ran at all.
There is a 2 gig limit on the size of the files and even then, it's not
recommended to get near that.

Check to see if there is a .dbt file in the message stores folder. If it is,
see what size it is, it may still be there that you can use it to recove the
old messages. If not, DBXPress is about it as it will scan the drive for
the old messages to see how many it can find that haven't been overwritten
by the file system. With 10 gig, that might end up taking a week to run.

Tell your customer to archive old messages in other folders and not the
Inbox and then don't let it get to over 1 gig at the most.

Compact only after backing up the message stores folder (should something go
wrong, you have the back up to replace it).

"Gerry Cornell" wrote in message

Angus

It is essential that you are Offline whilst compacting is in progress.
You must not use Outlook Express until compacting has finished.

Go to Start, Control Panel, Folder Options, View, Advanced
Settings and verify that the box before "Show hidden files and
folders" is checked and "Hide protected operating system files
" is unchecked. You may need to scroll down to see the second
item. You should also make certain that the box before "Hide
extensions for known file types" is not checked.

You may be able to recover your "lost" messages using an inexpensive
third party programme. Details of DBXtract in link cost $5 may help
with lost messages if the corrupted inbox is still on your computer.

However, check first that the corrupted inbox is there. Enter Windows
Explorer. Search My Computer drive with "inbo*.dbx" without quotes
as the search criteria and see if you can find more than one folder.
Note the date / time stamp on the files and the older folder will
contain your missing messages. The original inbox will appear as
inbox. dbx. The next as inbox (01) dbx, then inbox (02) dbx etc. The file
extension can also appear as .dbt i.e. a temporary folder.

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

http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/


"Angus Comber" wrote in message
...
Hello

I have a user with a huge Inbox and folders. When I first saw the
message store it was 10GB in total. I compacted and it came right
down. But funny things happened when I compacted. Sometimes while
compacting saw a message saying a program is using Outlook Express -
then I think it skipped compacting that file. Then strangely say
from 15th Nov 2005 to 18th Jan 2006 messages would be missing!

Is it best to 'Go Offline' before compacting? Does this help?

Then something really dreadful happened. The customer wanted to see
some other emails from an old profile. So I imported messages,
Import mail from an OE6 store directory. This started imported 4000
messages. When it had finished customer said say 'successfully
imported message' but then had problems so closed Outlook Express. It
then would not load. I looked in Task Manager and it seemed to
be taking up 400MB of memory - may have read it incorrectly - but a
lot anyway. and eventually it loaded - but there was nothing in the
Inbox. Although I looked at the Inbox and it was 2GB in size. so I
decided to compact to see if that would help - it then became tiny -
actually so tiny that nothing was in it! Of course the customer is
hopping mad and wonders what he pays me
for! He brought me in to fix his problems not cause them! Any
ideas on how to recover the Inbox? Is it even possible?

Is there a limit to the size of the Inbox?

Why am I getting these problems? Bar leaving the country, what can
I do? Angus

Why, oh wny, do people do things like this without backing up first? At
this point DBXpress is needed. http://www.oehelp.com

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE
"Anyone who prefers security over freedom deserves neither."