Any computer wizz kids out there ?

[beamish]

Started up the lappy this a.m. and ALL my e-mails in the in-box had disappeared ! :shock: Anyone have any idea why or where they may be lurking? They're not in the deleted folder or the bin . VERY STRANGE. All ideas warmly welcomed.

Running XP media edition and Outlook Express.

Karlo

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

My chick did something similar by clicking on the stripe for today, it collapses the contents and hides them. Could be that?

Kaptain Klevtsov

[beamish]

Not quite sure what you mean Jonathon .

I've looked everywhere they just seem to have gone !

[jgs001]

Karlo,

First off, right click on the inbox and select properties, how many emails does it indicate ?

The path will be something like :

C:\Documents and Settings\John\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{7387386D-8BF7-4216-830A-1739FC6D9D76}\Microsoft\Outlook Express\Inbox.dbx

This is the default from my computer. Excluding the name and the jumble of random numbers in the {} does yours look the same ?

Do you have any + signs on the folders pane ? If so click them, do you see any other inbox folders ?

Click on the File menu and select switch identities. Are there any other identities shown in the list, if so try swapping to one of them and see if your messages reappear.

Off the top of my head and without "seeing" the system, that's all I can suggest at the moment. See how you get on with those and let us know.

[beamish]

Thanks for your help chaps,but all to no avail I'm afraid ! :dont know: Gone !! c'est la vie

Karlo

[MikeP]

Karlo,

I don't use Outlook, but used to when I was gainfully employed. It is pretty damn difficult to delete a load of emails accidentally. They are there somewhere. Don't do anything rash, someone else will be along with another idea soon.

Mike

[beamish]

It's just really strange, everything that was in a folder is okay, but all emails left in the inbox prior to 18/03/08 has vanished- would a system restore been responsible ? as i found myself having to restore to the day before this a.m - but on the few occasions I've done this B4 this hadn't happened.

[MikeP]

Karlo,

I've got Outlook 2003 on my machine but unused for over a year and emails transferred to Thunderbird. So, I can't offer much advice.

However, one thing you could try ... do a right click on the blank part of the Inbox pane, this should bring up a context menu with Filter... as one of the menu choices on it.

You could click on that and see if there is a filter in effect that is hiding all emails earlier than today's or all read ones or something.

Highly unlikely, but worth a look.

Mike

[George]

System restore only rolls back changes to the system, ie drivers and installed programs.....data is NOT deleted.

Look in C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

It will either be a .pst or .dat file

Hope this helps

[coliea]

Have a look at this article Karlo - it may give you some pointers: http://tinyurl.com/m9pat

Good luck

Col

[EA2007]

I have no idea BUT......

Ditch Outlook Express, its rubbish.

Get a hotmail / windows live account or yahoo account. They are far easier to use, they are integrated into the web unlike Outlook Express and don't take a year to load and bring your system down when it screwsup (which is frequent).

Most things by microsoft are pants: Windows Media Player (get iTunes), Outlook Express (where's the express bit?, get Hotmail), Internet Explorer (get Firefox, less crashes and it saves your pages if it ever does crash, also Microsoft copied all there ideas)

This should help

[radioactive]

My ISP is Sky got their Broadband deal with the TV package to keep the tother half sweet but I use AOL webmail they gave me 2gigs space on it couldn't refuse that and its simple like me Just checked the url its now unlimited storage all for free here's the link Karlo if it helps to change over mate

http://info.aol.co.uk/email1/?sem=1&ncid=521

[philsail1]

Karlo,

As a last ditch hope, have you simply tried powering down your laptop and then starting up again - this can sometimes work out OK.

Best of luck,

philsail1

[beamish]

Okay thanks Col, that was very useful, it would appear it's a known problem with O E and McAfee Antivirus so I'm following thru with the advice and hopefully I'll be able to restore the "lost Files" soon.

I'll let you know how I get on !!

[jgs001]

Karlo, Perhaps it would be worth considering using something like Thunderbird as an alternate mail client. Or as has been suggested one of the web based ones. Some local based clients like Thunderbird are able to connect to and send and receive mail from the web based services, like gmail and hotmail. I use Thunderbird to access my gmail account for instance.

[MikeP]

I agree with jgs001. I've been using Thunderbird at home since it was first available. I've converted stuff from Outlook and Outlook Express to Thunderbird, even though I have licences for both of them.

My approach is to look at emails on-line (I use BT as my ISP) and get rid of any that are of no interest, check the spam filter for any that should not be considered spam and finally use Thunderbird to download the ones I keep / want to reply to. In practice I only download every few days.

I'm not a fan of keeping my correspondence on-line any longer than I need to. Most financial organisations send passwords and the like via snail mail, but sometimes confidential stuff is emailed - I prefer it to be on my machine, not the ISP's.

Mike

[coatesg]

Get a hotmail / windows live account or yahoo account.

Oh no - not Yahoo!... (Unless you prefer you email to be randomly delayed for sometimes days... loads of stuff over the web about thei "deprioritization")

Having tried (unsuccessfully) to deal with Yahoo! support regarding their mail servers rejecting inbound mail connections from a server I look after - sometimes for days at a time, I can safely say that if I can help it, I will never go near a Yahoo (and therefore) BT mail account again.

[Sam]

Get a hotmail / windows live account or yahoo account.

Oh no - not Yahoo!... (Unless you prefer you email to be randomly delayed for sometimes days... loads of stuff over the web about thei "deprioritization")

Having tried (unsuccessfully) to deal with Yahoo! support regarding their mail servers rejecting inbound mail connections from a server I look after - sometimes for days at a time, I can safely say that if I can help it, I will never go near a Yahoo (and therefore) BT mail account again.

I use gmail (or googlemail? I think it's called now) which seems pretty good. I also had problems with BT Yahoo and found them to be pretty useless at resolving anything. I now use Thunderbird as my email application directly linked to my gmail account - works really well.

Sam

[beamish]

Right the latest news is..... I've found where they're all hiding!! Corrupted dbx files( courtesy of McAfee). Trouble is there's no way to extract without purchasing a dbx extraction tool. So for $7 I've got one.

I will certainly give a great deal of thought to alternatives ! Thanks for all the help guys and thanks Ian for the offer, I may very well be getting in touch with you re .

I had considered Thunderbird b4, but pretty much a computer newby at the time so decided not to, BUT I love Mozilla Firefox so ????

Either way, now I know where they are( Inbox.dbx) I'm not so worried ,PHEW. All this just for some Lidl newsletters :D

Karlo

[beamish]

Been faffing about now for far too long and tried umpteen ways and tools and wotnots. Don't know even now quite what had happened but they're lost to the ether.

Karlo