IMHO, what you should do is create a 2009 Sent Items archive folder now and
once a day, drag all your Sent Items messages to it. Don't wait until
January, 2010.

If you find a dbx file with the missing messages, you may be able to move
the messages in among the others. Post back if you find something and we can
discuss it at that time.

You still have the option of DBXpress if these messages are that important
to you.

DBXpress:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

You may need to run it in the Extract From Disk Mode if its normal recovery
mode fails to find the lost messages.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Thanks Bruce and PA Bear,

I tried all the monkeying around with the Sent Items.dbx and .bak files
and Recycle Bin and those messages in that date range seem to be gone fair
and square. So, now I am going through our nightly backups and restoring
the Sent Items.dbx for each night. Each attempt takes about 15 minutes
and so far I am only back to June 22 and have not located when they
disappeared yet.

But, let's assume I do find a Sent Items.dbx that has the messages
included. Is there any way to APPEND/ADD the sent messages from that date
to today after I restore the folder?

Thanks,

Tom


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Another strange one. My wife just discovered that all emails in the Sent
Items between Jan 1, 2009 and May 28, 2009 are missing and I can't find
them anywhere. What could cause this?

We routinely archive all Sent Items from previous years in customized
folders like Saved Sent 2007 or Saved Sent 2008, hence the Jan 1, 2009
date being the first one in the current Sent Items. She is running XP
and IE 7.

Tom

OK, thanks for the tips.

Actually, I was able to recover most of the missing emails from my nightly
backup from a few weeks ago. After I got them restored, I tried to do a
manual "compact all folders" and I think I have discovered where one
problem is.

During the compaction, a couple of the folders give "bonk" and an error
message saying "The folder is currently in use by Outlook Express or by
another application." That required me to click on the box to clear that
error and proceed with the compaction. What gives with that? They were not
in use at all.

Then, this brings me to the real culprit. After I had cleared a couple of
those error messages, I noticed that it seemed to be taking a long time on
one folder. So, I tried to move the mouse and I found that the whole
machine was frozen. It stayed that way for a couple of hours and I could not
get the Task Manager or anything. So, I was required to do a power-off
crash to get the blasted thing running again. So, there is our problem ....
I had to do a crash during compaction. I didn't see that I had any other
choice.

Any suggestions other than the ones you have already mentioned about keeping
the folders small?

Tom




"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
IMHO, what you should do is create a 2009 Sent Items archive folder now
and once a day, drag all your Sent Items messages to it. Don't wait until
January, 2010.

If you find a dbx file with the missing messages, you may be able to move
the messages in among the others. Post back if you find something and we
can discuss it at that time.

You still have the option of DBXpress if these messages are that important
to you.

DBXpress:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

You may need to run it in the Extract From Disk Mode if its normal
recovery mode fails to find the lost messages.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Thanks Bruce and PA Bear,

I tried all the monkeying around with the Sent Items.dbx and .bak files
and Recycle Bin and those messages in that date range seem to be gone
fair and square. So, now I am going through our nightly backups and
restoring the Sent Items.dbx for each night. Each attempt takes about 15
minutes and so far I am only back to June 22 and have not located when
they disappeared yet.

But, let's assume I do find a Sent Items.dbx that has the messages
included. Is there any way to APPEND/ADD the sent messages from that date
to today after I restore the folder?

Thanks,

Tom


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Another strange one. My wife just discovered that all emails in the
Sent Items between Jan 1, 2009 and May 28, 2009 are missing and I can't
find them anywhere. What could cause this?

We routinely archive all Sent Items from previous years in customized
folders like Saved Sent 2007 or Saved Sent 2008, hence the Jan 1, 2009
date being the first one in the current Sent Items. She is running XP
and IE 7.

Tom

OK, thanks for the tips.

Actually, I was able to recover most of the missing emails from my nightly
backup from a few weeks ago. After I got them restored, I tried to do a
manual "compact all folders" and I think I have discovered where one
problem is.

During the compaction, a couple of the folders give "bonk" and an error
message saying "The folder is currently in use by Outlook Express or by
another application." That required me to click on the box to clear that
error and proceed with the compaction. What gives with that? They were not
in use at all.

Then, this brings me to the real culprit. After I had cleared a couple of
those error messages, I noticed that it seemed to be taking a long time on
one folder. So, I tried to move the mouse and I found that the whole
machine was frozen. It stayed that way for a couple of hours and I could not
get the Task Manager or anything. So, I was required to do a power-off
crash to get the blasted thing running again. So, there is our problem ....
I had to do a crash during compaction. I didn't see that I had any other
choice.

Any suggestions other than the ones you have already mentioned about keeping
the folders small?

Tom




"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
IMHO, what you should do is create a 2009 Sent Items archive folder now
and once a day, drag all your Sent Items messages to it. Don't wait until
January, 2010.

If you find a dbx file with the missing messages, you may be able to move
the messages in among the others. Post back if you find something and we
can discuss it at that time.

You still have the option of DBXpress if these messages are that important
to you.

DBXpress:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

You may need to run it in the Extract From Disk Mode if its normal
recovery mode fails to find the lost messages.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Thanks Bruce and PA Bear,

I tried all the monkeying around with the Sent Items.dbx and .bak files
and Recycle Bin and those messages in that date range seem to be gone
fair and square. So, now I am going through our nightly backups and
restoring the Sent Items.dbx for each night. Each attempt takes about 15
minutes and so far I am only back to June 22 and have not located when
they disappeared yet.

But, let's assume I do find a Sent Items.dbx that has the messages
included. Is there any way to APPEND/ADD the sent messages from that date
to today after I restore the folder?

Thanks,

Tom


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Another strange one. My wife just discovered that all emails in the
Sent Items between Jan 1, 2009 and May 28, 2009 are missing and I can't
find them anywhere. What could cause this?

We routinely archive all Sent Items from previous years in customized
folders like Saved Sent 2007 or Saved Sent 2008, hence the Jan 1, 2009
date being the first one in the current Sent Items. She is running XP
and IE 7.

Tom

Are you compacting in this manner?

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.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

Did you determine which folders compacting hung on? What are the sizes of
your dbx files right now? (Just those over 300MB).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
OK, thanks for the tips.

Actually, I was able to recover most of the missing emails from my nightly
backup from a few weeks ago. After I got them restored, I tried to do a
manual "compact all folders" and I think I have discovered where one
problem is.

During the compaction, a couple of the folders give "bonk" and an error
message saying "The folder is currently in use by Outlook Express or by
another application." That required me to click on the box to clear that
error and proceed with the compaction. What gives with that? They were
not in use at all.

Then, this brings me to the real culprit. After I had cleared a couple of
those error messages, I noticed that it seemed to be taking a long time on
one folder. So, I tried to move the mouse and I found that the whole
machine was frozen. It stayed that way for a couple of hours and I could
not get the Task Manager or anything. So, I was required to do a
power-off crash to get the blasted thing running again. So, there is our
problem .... I had to do a crash during compaction. I didn't see that I
had any other choice.

Any suggestions other than the ones you have already mentioned about
keeping the folders small?

Tom




"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
IMHO, what you should do is create a 2009 Sent Items archive folder now
and once a day, drag all your Sent Items messages to it. Don't wait until
January, 2010.

If you find a dbx file with the missing messages, you may be able to move
the messages in among the others. Post back if you find something and we
can discuss it at that time.

You still have the option of DBXpress if these messages are that
important to you.

DBXpress:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

You may need to run it in the Extract From Disk Mode if its normal
recovery mode fails to find the lost messages.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Thanks Bruce and PA Bear,

I tried all the monkeying around with the Sent Items.dbx and .bak files
and Recycle Bin and those messages in that date range seem to be gone
fair and square. So, now I am going through our nightly backups and
restoring the Sent Items.dbx for each night. Each attempt takes about
15 minutes and so far I am only back to June 22 and have not located
when they disappeared yet.

But, let's assume I do find a Sent Items.dbx that has the messages
included. Is there any way to APPEND/ADD the sent messages from that
date to today after I restore the folder?

Thanks,

Tom


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Another strange one. My wife just discovered that all emails in the
Sent Items between Jan 1, 2009 and May 28, 2009 are missing and I can't
find them anywhere. What could cause this?

We routinely archive all Sent Items from previous years in customized
folders like Saved Sent 2007 or Saved Sent 2008, hence the Jan 1, 2009
date being the first one in the current Sent Items. She is running XP
and IE 7.

Tom

Are you compacting in this manner?

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.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

Did you determine which folders compacting hung on? What are the sizes of
your dbx files right now? (Just those over 300MB).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
OK, thanks for the tips.

Actually, I was able to recover most of the missing emails from my nightly
backup from a few weeks ago. After I got them restored, I tried to do a
manual "compact all folders" and I think I have discovered where one
problem is.

During the compaction, a couple of the folders give "bonk" and an error
message saying "The folder is currently in use by Outlook Express or by
another application." That required me to click on the box to clear that
error and proceed with the compaction. What gives with that? They were
not in use at all.

Then, this brings me to the real culprit. After I had cleared a couple of
those error messages, I noticed that it seemed to be taking a long time on
one folder. So, I tried to move the mouse and I found that the whole
machine was frozen. It stayed that way for a couple of hours and I could
not get the Task Manager or anything. So, I was required to do a
power-off crash to get the blasted thing running again. So, there is our
problem .... I had to do a crash during compaction. I didn't see that I
had any other choice.

Any suggestions other than the ones you have already mentioned about
keeping the folders small?

Tom




"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
IMHO, what you should do is create a 2009 Sent Items archive folder now
and once a day, drag all your Sent Items messages to it. Don't wait until
January, 2010.

If you find a dbx file with the missing messages, you may be able to move
the messages in among the others. Post back if you find something and we
can discuss it at that time.

You still have the option of DBXpress if these messages are that
important to you.

DBXpress:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

You may need to run it in the Extract From Disk Mode if its normal
recovery mode fails to find the lost messages.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Thanks Bruce and PA Bear,

I tried all the monkeying around with the Sent Items.dbx and .bak files
and Recycle Bin and those messages in that date range seem to be gone
fair and square. So, now I am going through our nightly backups and
restoring the Sent Items.dbx for each night. Each attempt takes about
15 minutes and so far I am only back to June 22 and have not located
when they disappeared yet.

But, let's assume I do find a Sent Items.dbx that has the messages
included. Is there any way to APPEND/ADD the sent messages from that
date to today after I restore the folder?

Thanks,

Tom


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Another strange one. My wife just discovered that all emails in the
Sent Items between Jan 1, 2009 and May 28, 2009 are missing and I can't
find them anywhere. What could cause this?

We routinely archive all Sent Items from previous years in customized
folders like Saved Sent 2007 or Saved Sent 2008, hence the Jan 1, 2009
date being the first one in the current Sent Items. She is running XP
and IE 7.

Tom

Bruce,

I can't be certain which folders gave me the error message, but I do recall
that one of them was a default folder (maybe Sent or Deleted Items?) and one
of them was a folder I made (maybe Saved Sent 2006). I did always go to the
top of the tree before starting a manual compaction operation but I don't
think I remembered to go offline.

But, since I wrote to you, we have discovered that we lost the contents of
21 custom folders when it hung and I had to crash it. I have subsequently
restored them but to be honest, I am afraid to compact again. I'll try
again next week as we are getting ready to head out of town and I don't need
the aggravation right now.

Right now, the largest .dbx folder in the directory is 1,041,099 KB and if
my math is correct, that is about 127 MB (thank you Google). Most of the
ones we lost were in the 2000 KB to 55,000 KB range. So, to make a long
answer short, none of our folders is nearly as large as 300 MB.

Thanks,

Tom


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Are you compacting in this manner?

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.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

Did you determine which folders compacting hung on? What are the sizes of
your dbx files right now? (Just those over 300MB).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
OK, thanks for the tips.

Actually, I was able to recover most of the missing emails from my
nightly backup from a few weeks ago. After I got them restored, I tried
to do a manual "compact all folders" and I think I have discovered where
one problem is.

During the compaction, a couple of the folders give "bonk" and an error
message saying "The folder is currently in use by Outlook Express or by
another application." That required me to click on the box to clear that
error and proceed with the compaction. What gives with that? They were
not in use at all.

Then, this brings me to the real culprit. After I had cleared a couple
of those error messages, I noticed that it seemed to be taking a long
time on one folder. So, I tried to move the mouse and I found that the
whole machine was frozen. It stayed that way for a couple of hours and I
could not get the Task Manager or anything. So, I was required to do a
power-off crash to get the blasted thing running again. So, there is our
problem .... I had to do a crash during compaction. I didn't see that I
had any other choice.

Any suggestions other than the ones you have already mentioned about
keeping the folders small?

Tom




"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
IMHO, what you should do is create a 2009 Sent Items archive folder now
and once a day, drag all your Sent Items messages to it. Don't wait
until January, 2010.

If you find a dbx file with the missing messages, you may be able to
move the messages in among the others. Post back if you find something
and we can discuss it at that time.

You still have the option of DBXpress if these messages are that
important to you.

DBXpress:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

You may need to run it in the Extract From Disk Mode if its normal
recovery mode fails to find the lost messages.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Thanks Bruce and PA Bear,

I tried all the monkeying around with the Sent Items.dbx and .bak files
and Recycle Bin and those messages in that date range seem to be gone
fair and square. So, now I am going through our nightly backups and
restoring the Sent Items.dbx for each night. Each attempt takes about
15 minutes and so far I am only back to June 22 and have not located
when they disappeared yet.

But, let's assume I do find a Sent Items.dbx that has the messages
included. Is there any way to APPEND/ADD the sent messages from that
date to today after I restore the folder?

Thanks,

Tom


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Another strange one. My wife just discovered that all emails in the
Sent Items between Jan 1, 2009 and May 28, 2009 are missing and I
can't find them anywhere. What could cause this?

We routinely archive all Sent Items from previous years in customized
folders like Saved Sent 2007 or Saved Sent 2008, hence the Jan 1, 2009
date being the first one in the current Sent Items. She is running
XP and IE 7.

Tom

Bruce,

I can't be certain which folders gave me the error message, but I do recall
that one of them was a default folder (maybe Sent or Deleted Items?) and one
of them was a folder I made (maybe Saved Sent 2006). I did always go to the
top of the tree before starting a manual compaction operation but I don't
think I remembered to go offline.

But, since I wrote to you, we have discovered that we lost the contents of
21 custom folders when it hung and I had to crash it. I have subsequently
restored them but to be honest, I am afraid to compact again. I'll try
again next week as we are getting ready to head out of town and I don't need
the aggravation right now.

Right now, the largest .dbx folder in the directory is 1,041,099 KB and if
my math is correct, that is about 127 MB (thank you Google). Most of the
ones we lost were in the 2000 KB to 55,000 KB range. So, to make a long
answer short, none of our folders is nearly as large as 300 MB.

Thanks,

Tom


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Are you compacting in this manner?

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.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

Did you determine which folders compacting hung on? What are the sizes of
your dbx files right now? (Just those over 300MB).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
OK, thanks for the tips.

Actually, I was able to recover most of the missing emails from my
nightly backup from a few weeks ago. After I got them restored, I tried
to do a manual "compact all folders" and I think I have discovered where
one problem is.

During the compaction, a couple of the folders give "bonk" and an error
message saying "The folder is currently in use by Outlook Express or by
another application." That required me to click on the box to clear that
error and proceed with the compaction. What gives with that? They were
not in use at all.

Then, this brings me to the real culprit. After I had cleared a couple
of those error messages, I noticed that it seemed to be taking a long
time on one folder. So, I tried to move the mouse and I found that the
whole machine was frozen. It stayed that way for a couple of hours and I
could not get the Task Manager or anything. So, I was required to do a
power-off crash to get the blasted thing running again. So, there is our
problem .... I had to do a crash during compaction. I didn't see that I
had any other choice.

Any suggestions other than the ones you have already mentioned about
keeping the folders small?

Tom




"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
IMHO, what you should do is create a 2009 Sent Items archive folder now
and once a day, drag all your Sent Items messages to it. Don't wait
until January, 2010.

If you find a dbx file with the missing messages, you may be able to
move the messages in among the others. Post back if you find something
and we can discuss it at that time.

You still have the option of DBXpress if these messages are that
important to you.

DBXpress:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

You may need to run it in the Extract From Disk Mode if its normal
recovery mode fails to find the lost messages.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Thanks Bruce and PA Bear,

I tried all the monkeying around with the Sent Items.dbx and .bak files
and Recycle Bin and those messages in that date range seem to be gone
fair and square. So, now I am going through our nightly backups and
restoring the Sent Items.dbx for each night. Each attempt takes about
15 minutes and so far I am only back to June 22 and have not located
when they disappeared yet.

But, let's assume I do find a Sent Items.dbx that has the messages
included. Is there any way to APPEND/ADD the sent messages from that
date to today after I restore the folder?

Thanks,

Tom


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Another strange one. My wife just discovered that all emails in the
Sent Items between Jan 1, 2009 and May 28, 2009 are missing and I
can't find them anywhere. What could cause this?

We routinely archive all Sent Items from previous years in customized
folders like Saved Sent 2007 or Saved Sent 2008, hence the Jan 1, 2009
date being the first one in the current Sent Items. She is running
XP and IE 7.

Tom

Download this tool and backup OE often including ****before**** you compact.
Anything goes wrong you can just restore the folders.

Try compacting each folder individually. If you get through that, a compact
all should work fine.

This freeware tool backs up everything in OE in seconds. Disregard what is
written in red. That is referring to a different program.

Outlook Express Quick Backup (OEQB):
http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx

General precautions for Outlook Express:

Do not archive mail in the Inbox or Sent Items. Create your own user defined
folders and move the messages you wish to save to them. Empty Deleted Items
folder daily. Although dbx files have a theoretical capacity of 2GB, I
recommend about a 300MB max for less chance of corruption.

Information about the maximum file size of the .dbx files that are used by
Outlook Express:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=903095

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

*Clean out your Inbox* & Sent Items*.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Bruce,

I can't be certain which folders gave me the error message, but I do
recall that one of them was a default folder (maybe Sent or Deleted
Items?) and one of them was a folder I made (maybe Saved Sent 2006). I
did always go to the top of the tree before starting a manual compaction
operation but I don't think I remembered to go offline.

But, since I wrote to you, we have discovered that we lost the contents of
21 custom folders when it hung and I had to crash it. I have subsequently
restored them but to be honest, I am afraid to compact again. I'll try
again next week as we are getting ready to head out of town and I don't
need the aggravation right now.

Right now, the largest .dbx folder in the directory is 1,041,099 KB and if
my math is correct, that is about 127 MB (thank you Google). Most of the
ones we lost were in the 2000 KB to 55,000 KB range. So, to make a long
answer short, none of our folders is nearly as large as 300 MB.

Thanks,

Tom


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Are you compacting in this manner?

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.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

Did you determine which folders compacting hung on? What are the sizes of
your dbx files right now? (Just those over 300MB).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
OK, thanks for the tips.

Actually, I was able to recover most of the missing emails from my
nightly backup from a few weeks ago. After I got them restored, I tried
to do a manual "compact all folders" and I think I have discovered
where one problem is.

During the compaction, a couple of the folders give "bonk" and an error
message saying "The folder is currently in use by Outlook Express or by
another application." That required me to click on the box to clear
that error and proceed with the compaction. What gives with that? They
were not in use at all.

Then, this brings me to the real culprit. After I had cleared a couple
of those error messages, I noticed that it seemed to be taking a long
time on one folder. So, I tried to move the mouse and I found that the
whole machine was frozen. It stayed that way for a couple of hours and I
could not get the Task Manager or anything. So, I was required to do a
power-off crash to get the blasted thing running again. So, there is
our problem .... I had to do a crash during compaction. I didn't see
that I had any other choice.

Any suggestions other than the ones you have already mentioned about
keeping the folders small?

Tom




"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
IMHO, what you should do is create a 2009 Sent Items archive folder now
and once a day, drag all your Sent Items messages to it. Don't wait
until January, 2010.

If you find a dbx file with the missing messages, you may be able to
move the messages in among the others. Post back if you find something
and we can discuss it at that time.

You still have the option of DBXpress if these messages are that
important to you.

DBXpress:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

You may need to run it in the Extract From Disk Mode if its normal
recovery mode fails to find the lost messages.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Thanks Bruce and PA Bear,

I tried all the monkeying around with the Sent Items.dbx and .bak
files and Recycle Bin and those messages in that date range seem to be
gone fair and square. So, now I am going through our nightly backups
and restoring the Sent Items.dbx for each night. Each attempt takes
about 15 minutes and so far I am only back to June 22 and have not
located when they disappeared yet.

But, let's assume I do find a Sent Items.dbx that has the messages
included. Is there any way to APPEND/ADD the sent messages from that
date to today after I restore the folder?

Thanks,

Tom


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Another strange one. My wife just discovered that all emails in the
Sent Items between Jan 1, 2009 and May 28, 2009 are missing and I
can't find them anywhere. What could cause this?

We routinely archive all Sent Items from previous years in customized
folders like Saved Sent 2007 or Saved Sent 2008, hence the Jan 1,
2009 date being the first one in the current Sent Items. She is
running XP and IE 7.

Tom

Download this tool and backup OE often including ****before**** you compact.
Anything goes wrong you can just restore the folders.

Try compacting each folder individually. If you get through that, a compact
all should work fine.

This freeware tool backs up everything in OE in seconds. Disregard what is
written in red. That is referring to a different program.

Outlook Express Quick Backup (OEQB):
http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx

General precautions for Outlook Express:

Do not archive mail in the Inbox or Sent Items. Create your own user defined
folders and move the messages you wish to save to them. Empty Deleted Items
folder daily. Although dbx files have a theoretical capacity of 2GB, I
recommend about a 300MB max for less chance of corruption.

Information about the maximum file size of the .dbx files that are used by
Outlook Express:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=903095

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

*Clean out your Inbox* & Sent Items*.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Bruce,

I can't be certain which folders gave me the error message, but I do
recall that one of them was a default folder (maybe Sent or Deleted
Items?) and one of them was a folder I made (maybe Saved Sent 2006). I
did always go to the top of the tree before starting a manual compaction
operation but I don't think I remembered to go offline.

But, since I wrote to you, we have discovered that we lost the contents of
21 custom folders when it hung and I had to crash it. I have subsequently
restored them but to be honest, I am afraid to compact again. I'll try
again next week as we are getting ready to head out of town and I don't
need the aggravation right now.

Right now, the largest .dbx folder in the directory is 1,041,099 KB and if
my math is correct, that is about 127 MB (thank you Google). Most of the
ones we lost were in the 2000 KB to 55,000 KB range. So, to make a long
answer short, none of our folders is nearly as large as 300 MB.

Thanks,

Tom


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Are you compacting in this manner?

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.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

Did you determine which folders compacting hung on? What are the sizes of
your dbx files right now? (Just those over 300MB).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
OK, thanks for the tips.

Actually, I was able to recover most of the missing emails from my
nightly backup from a few weeks ago. After I got them restored, I tried
to do a manual "compact all folders" and I think I have discovered
where one problem is.

During the compaction, a couple of the folders give "bonk" and an error
message saying "The folder is currently in use by Outlook Express or by
another application." That required me to click on the box to clear
that error and proceed with the compaction. What gives with that? They
were not in use at all.

Then, this brings me to the real culprit. After I had cleared a couple
of those error messages, I noticed that it seemed to be taking a long
time on one folder. So, I tried to move the mouse and I found that the
whole machine was frozen. It stayed that way for a couple of hours and I
could not get the Task Manager or anything. So, I was required to do a
power-off crash to get the blasted thing running again. So, there is
our problem .... I had to do a crash during compaction. I didn't see
that I had any other choice.

Any suggestions other than the ones you have already mentioned about
keeping the folders small?

Tom




"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
IMHO, what you should do is create a 2009 Sent Items archive folder now
and once a day, drag all your Sent Items messages to it. Don't wait
until January, 2010.

If you find a dbx file with the missing messages, you may be able to
move the messages in among the others. Post back if you find something
and we can discuss it at that time.

You still have the option of DBXpress if these messages are that
important to you.

DBXpress:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

You may need to run it in the Extract From Disk Mode if its normal
recovery mode fails to find the lost messages.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Thanks Bruce and PA Bear,

I tried all the monkeying around with the Sent Items.dbx and .bak
files and Recycle Bin and those messages in that date range seem to be
gone fair and square. So, now I am going through our nightly backups
and restoring the Sent Items.dbx for each night. Each attempt takes
about 15 minutes and so far I am only back to June 22 and have not
located when they disappeared yet.

But, let's assume I do find a Sent Items.dbx that has the messages
included. Is there any way to APPEND/ADD the sent messages from that
date to today after I restore the folder?

Thanks,

Tom


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Another strange one. My wife just discovered that all emails in the
Sent Items between Jan 1, 2009 and May 28, 2009 are missing and I
can't find them anywhere. What could cause this?

We routinely archive all Sent Items from previous years in customized
folders like Saved Sent 2007 or Saved Sent 2008, hence the Jan 1,
2009 date being the first one in the current Sent Items. She is
running XP and IE 7.

Tom

The math is not correct.
KB is kilobytes. kb is kilobits
Windows Explorer shows kilobytes.
1,041,099 KB is 1016.6982421875 MB is 1 GB.
300 MB is a good limit. 1016 MB is too high.
--
Ron Sommer

"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Bruce,

I can't be certain which folders gave me the error message, but I do
recall that one of them was a default folder (maybe Sent or Deleted
Items?) and one of them was a folder I made (maybe Saved Sent 2006). I
did always go to the top of the tree before starting a manual compaction
operation but I don't think I remembered to go offline.

But, since I wrote to you, we have discovered that we lost the contents of
21 custom folders when it hung and I had to crash it. I have subsequently
restored them but to be honest, I am afraid to compact again. I'll try
again next week as we are getting ready to head out of town and I don't
need the aggravation right now.

Right now, the largest .dbx folder in the directory is 1,041,099 KB and if
my math is correct, that is about 127 MB (thank you Google). Most of the
ones we lost were in the 2000 KB to 55,000 KB range. So, to make a long
answer short, none of our folders is nearly as large as 300 MB.

Thanks,

Tom


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Are you compacting in this manner?

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.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

Did you determine which folders compacting hung on? What are the sizes of
your dbx files right now? (Just those over 300MB).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
OK, thanks for the tips.

Actually, I was able to recover most of the missing emails from my
nightly backup from a few weeks ago. After I got them restored, I tried
to do a manual "compact all folders" and I think I have discovered
where one problem is.

During the compaction, a couple of the folders give "bonk" and an error
message saying "The folder is currently in use by Outlook Express or by
another application." That required me to click on the box to clear
that error and proceed with the compaction. What gives with that? They
were not in use at all.

Then, this brings me to the real culprit. After I had cleared a couple
of those error messages, I noticed that it seemed to be taking a long
time on one folder. So, I tried to move the mouse and I found that the
whole machine was frozen. It stayed that way for a couple of hours and I
could not get the Task Manager or anything. So, I was required to do a
power-off crash to get the blasted thing running again. So, there is
our problem .... I had to do a crash during compaction. I didn't see
that I had any other choice.

Any suggestions other than the ones you have already mentioned about
keeping the folders small?

Tom




"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
IMHO, what you should do is create a 2009 Sent Items archive folder now
and once a day, drag all your Sent Items messages to it. Don't wait
until January, 2010.

If you find a dbx file with the missing messages, you may be able to
move the messages in among the others. Post back if you find something
and we can discuss it at that time.

You still have the option of DBXpress if these messages are that
important to you.

DBXpress:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

You may need to run it in the Extract From Disk Mode if its normal
recovery mode fails to find the lost messages.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Thanks Bruce and PA Bear,

I tried all the monkeying around with the Sent Items.dbx and .bak
files and Recycle Bin and those messages in that date range seem to be
gone fair and square. So, now I am going through our nightly backups
and restoring the Sent Items.dbx for each night. Each attempt takes
about 15 minutes and so far I am only back to June 22 and have not
located when they disappeared yet.

But, let's assume I do find a Sent Items.dbx that has the messages
included. Is there any way to APPEND/ADD the sent messages from that
date to today after I restore the folder?

Thanks,

Tom


"Tom Brown" wrote in message
...
Another strange one. My wife just discovered that all emails in the
Sent Items between Jan 1, 2009 and May 28, 2009 are missing and I
can't find them anywhere. What could cause this?

We routinely archive all Sent Items from previous years in customized
folders like Saved Sent 2007 or Saved Sent 2008, hence the Jan 1,
2009 date being the first one in the current Sent Items. She is
running XP and IE 7.

Tom