Suddenly my Inbox (4022 messages)

Starts with November 15 down to November 11,
next entry is October 15

Any idea what happened?

How to recover?


--
Roland Mösl
http://car.pege.org cars and traffic
http://live.pege.org building and live
http://www.pege.org

Yes. Your Inbox got too bloated.

The two most common reasons for what you describe is disruption of the
compacting process, (never touch anything until it's finished), or bloated
folders. More on that below.

Why does OE insist on compacting folders when I close it?:
http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/why.htm#compact

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

About File Corruption:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/...orruption.mspx

Recovery tools:

If you are running XP/SP2, or SP3, and are fully patched, then you should
have a backup of your dbx files in the Recycle Bin, (or possibly the message
store), copied as bak files.

To restore a bak folder to the message store folder, first find the location
of the Message Store.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the location of
your Outlook Express files. Write the location down and navigate to it in
Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it into Start | Run.

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

Close OE and then 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.

First, check if there is a bak file already in the message store. If there
is, and you removed the dbx file, go ahead and rename it to dbx.

If it isn't already in the message store, 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.

If you do not have bak copies of your dbx files in the Recycle Bin, then:

DBXpress run in Extract From Disk Mode is the best chance to recover
messages:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

And see:
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#4

A general warning to help avoid this in the futu

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

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

And backup often.

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

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


"Roland Mösl" wrote in message
...
Suddenly my Inbox (4022 messages)

Starts with November 15 down to November 11,
next entry is October 15

Any idea what happened?

How to recover?


--
Roland Mösl
http://car.pege.org cars and traffic
http://live.pege.org building and live
http://www.pege.org

"Bruce Hagen" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
To restore a bak folder to the message store folder, first find the
location of the Message Store.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the location of
your Outlook Express files. Write the location down and navigate to it in
Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it into Start | Run.

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

There are 3 inbox.bak found.

Newest is from August 2nd with 380 MB
Current inbox.dbx has 600 MB

Seems this will not help


--
Roland Mösl
http://car.pege.org cars and traffic
http://live.pege.org building and live
http://www.pege.org

"Roland Mösl" wrote in message
...
"Bruce Hagen" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
To restore a bak folder to the message store folder, first find the
location of the Message Store.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the location of
your Outlook Express files. Write the location down and navigate to it in
Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it into Start | Run.

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

There are 3 inbox.bak found.

Newest is from August 2nd with 380 MB
Current inbox.dbx has 600 MB

Seems this will not help


--
Roland Mösl
http://car.pege.org cars and traffic
http://live.pege.org building and live
http://www.pege.org


Then you need a recovery tool as I indicated.
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#4

If you have not compacted since the date of the oldest missing message,
DBXtract should work. However, it may take a very long time and if it fails,
you will need DBXpress and there is no refund for either.

Be sure to heed the precautions I posted in the future.
--

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

DBXtract will not work. The file got wiped of the messages and where they
were got filled with zeroes. This happens a lot, so one should always
backup important messages. Antivirus software greatly increases the chance
of this happening (see www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#3), but it has happened on
systems of mine where there was no antivirus software, so its an inherent
flaw.

Roland needs to restore each bak file to determine if the lost messages in
that time segment are still in the bak files -- the file size is
irrelevant). He can use the method for importing individual dbx files
(www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx#imp1). If that doesn't work, then the only
chance of recovery is the extract from disk feature of DBXpress
(www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/)

steve
yes I just backed up my message store G

"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
"Roland Mösl" wrote in message
...
"Bruce Hagen" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
To restore a bak folder to the message store folder, first find the
location of the Message Store.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the location of
your Outlook Express files. Write the location down and navigate to it
in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it into Start | Run.

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

There are 3 inbox.bak found.

Newest is from August 2nd with 380 MB
Current inbox.dbx has 600 MB

Seems this will not help


--
Roland Mösl
http://car.pege.org cars and traffic
http://live.pege.org building and live
http://www.pege.org


Then you need a recovery tool as I indicated.
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#4

If you have not compacted since the date of the oldest missing message,
DBXtract should work. However, it may take a very long time and if it
fails, you will need DBXpress and there is no refund for either.

Be sure to heed the precautions I posted in the future.
--

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

"Bruce Hagen" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
"Roland Mösl" wrote in message
...
"Bruce Hagen" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
To restore a bak folder to the message store folder, first find the
location of the Message Store.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the location of
your Outlook Express files. Write the location down and navigate to it
in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it into Start | Run.

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

There are 3 inbox.bak found.

Newest is from August 2nd with 380 MB
Current inbox.dbx has 600 MB

Seems this will not help

Then you need a recovery tool as I indicated.
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#4

If you have not compacted since the date of the oldest missing message,
DBXtract should work. However, it may take a very long time and if it
fails, you will need DBXpress and there is no refund for either.

Thanks, it worked!

Be sure to heed the precautions I posted in the future.

There are big backup problems with Outlock Express

I have written my own database system.
It creates year-month files.

So at a backup of files changed,
only a small part of all files have to
be copied.

But Outlock Express always marks at start all DBX Files as
changed, making OE Backup a time consuming hell.

I think at software design, there should be also thoughts
how to make easy backups.

From the rest of my system, I have daily backups
from the changed files.

Only OE is a huge problem case.

--
Roland Mösl
http://car.pege.org cars and traffic
http://live.pege.org building and live
http://www.pege.org

"Roland Mösl" wrote in message
...
"Bruce Hagen" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
"Roland Mösl" wrote in message
...
"Bruce Hagen" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
To restore a bak folder to the message store folder, first find the
location of the Message Store.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the location
of
your Outlook Express files. Write the location down and navigate to it
in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it into Start | Run.

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

There are 3 inbox.bak found.

Newest is from August 2nd with 380 MB
Current inbox.dbx has 600 MB

Seems this will not help

Then you need a recovery tool as I indicated.
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#4

If you have not compacted since the date of the oldest missing message,
DBXtract should work. However, it may take a very long time and if it
fails, you will need DBXpress and there is no refund for either.

Thanks, it worked!

Be sure to heed the precautions I posted in the future.

There are big backup problems with Outlock Express

I have written my own database system.
It creates year-month files.

So at a backup of files changed,
only a small part of all files have to
be copied.

But Outlock Express always marks at start all DBX Files as
changed, making OE Backup a time consuming hell.

I think at software design, there should be also thoughts
how to make easy backups.

From the rest of my system, I have daily backups
from the changed files.

Only OE is a huge problem case.

--
Roland Mösl
http://car.pege.org cars and traffic
http://live.pege.org building and live
http://www.pege.org




You're welcome. What do you find hard about OEQB? A couple of clicks and
everything is backed up. This includes messages, rules, your personalized OE
settings, etc.

You create a folder on your HDD, (My Documents is where I have mine), and
besides being able to restore from this folder, also with a couple of
clicks, the folder itself can be backed up when you backup all your other
files and folders.

I had to reformat a few months ago. Copied the OEQB folder to the new
install and There was OE just how I left it in seconds. All three
identities.
--

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

cf. this recent & related thread in OE General newsgroup:
http://groups.google.com/group/micro...5c65ec3ab956df

Roland Mösl wrote:
snip
There are big backup problems with Outlock Express

I have written my own database system.
It creates year-month files.

So at a backup of files changed,
only a small part of all files have to
be copied.

But Outlock Express always marks at start all DBX Files as
changed, making OE Backup a time consuming hell.

I think at software design, there should be also thoughts
how to make easy backups.

From the rest of my system, I have daily backups
from the changed files.

Only OE is a huge problem case.

"Roland Mösl" wrote in message
...
"Bruce Hagen" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
"Roland Mösl" wrote in message
...
"Bruce Hagen" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
To restore a bak folder to the message store folder, first find the
location of the Message Store.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the location
of
your Outlook Express files. Write the location down and navigate to it
in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it into Start | Run.

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

There are 3 inbox.bak found.

Newest is from August 2nd with 380 MB
Current inbox.dbx has 600 MB

Seems this will not help

Then you need a recovery tool as I indicated.
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#4

If you have not compacted since the date of the oldest missing message,
DBXtract should work. However, it may take a very long time and if it
fails, you will need DBXpress and there is no refund for either.

Thanks, it worked!

Be sure to heed the precautions I posted in the future.

There are big backup problems with Outlock Express

I have written my own database system.
It creates year-month files.

So at a backup of files changed,
only a small part of all files have to
be copied.

But Outlock Express always marks at start all DBX Files as
changed, making OE Backup a time consuming hell.

I think at software design, there should be also thoughts
how to make easy backups.

From the rest of my system, I have daily backups
from the changed files.

Only OE is a huge problem case.

--
Roland Mösl
http://car.pege.org cars and traffic
http://live.pege.org building and live
http://www.pege.org




You're welcome. What do you find hard about OEQB? A couple of clicks and
everything is backed up. This includes messages, rules, your personalized OE
settings, etc.

You create a folder on your HDD, (My Documents is where I have mine), and
besides being able to restore from this folder, also with a couple of
clicks, the folder itself can be backed up when you backup all your other
files and folders.

I had to reformat a few months ago. Copied the OEQB folder to the new
install and There was OE just how I left it in seconds. All three
identities.
--

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

cf. this recent & related thread in OE General newsgroup:
http://groups.google.com/group/micro...5c65ec3ab956df

Roland Mösl wrote:
snip
There are big backup problems with Outlock Express

I have written my own database system.
It creates year-month files.

So at a backup of files changed,
only a small part of all files have to
be copied.

But Outlock Express always marks at start all DBX Files as
changed, making OE Backup a time consuming hell.

I think at software design, there should be also thoughts
how to make easy backups.

From the rest of my system, I have daily backups
from the changed files.

Only OE is a huge problem case.