Each time Outlook Express 6.0 closes, is asks for permission to compact
e-mail messages to free up additional space on the hard drive. I accidently
pressed "Yes", and saw that the program was starting to do something. I then
pressed Ctrl-Alt-Del a couple of times and eventually got it to stop. The
next time I opened Outlook Express, all the messages in my Inbox had
disappeared. In the store folder there was now a new entry (Inbox.dbt). I
tried several ways to open it, or to copy it's contents to a newly-created
Outlook Express folder (with a .dbx extension) but all with no luck. Now the
new entry (Inbox.dbt) is missing entirely. I have no idea what happened to
it. It simply disappeared, and all my messages with it. It is not in the
Recycle Bin. Am using XP-Pro. Any idea how I can recover my lost messages?

Thanks.

--
Ciao,
:-)
Tom

Never touch anything while OE is compacting. Stopping the process caused
this.

First, does the size of the Inbox.dbt folder reflect that it has messages in
it? If id does, you have a few options. (If it doesn't, the mail is gone).

Rename the folder to My Mail.dbx and follow then do this:

In Windows Explorer, click on the file and drag it to the Desktop. Open OE
and create a folder with the *exact* same name as the one on your desktop,
(My Mail). ***Copy a message from any folder to the new one. You MUST do
this.*** Close OE. Go back to Windows Explorer and Click Desktop and drag
the folder from the Desktop to the OE store folder that you clicked on to
reveal the .dbx files. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click
Yes.

If that doesn't work, you can try these tools:

DBXtract: {Cost: $5.00}
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx

DBXpress: {$24.95, but much faster for large files}
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

And please read these:

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

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

A general warning if you don't want to lose your messages in the future:

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.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS MVP - Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

"usoverseas" <usoverseas@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3E63081F-3593-48A1-95CE-76EE812B499D@microsoft.com...
> Each time Outlook Express 6.0 closes, is asks for permission to compact
> e-mail messages to free up additional space on the hard drive. I
> accidently
> pressed "Yes", and saw that the program was starting to do something. I
> then
> pressed Ctrl-Alt-Del a couple of times and eventually got it to stop. The
> next time I opened Outlook Express, all the messages in my Inbox had
> disappeared. In the store folder there was now a new entry (Inbox.dbt). I
> tried several ways to open it, or to copy it's contents to a newly-created
> Outlook Express folder (with a .dbx extension) but all with no luck. Now
> the
> new entry (Inbox.dbt) is missing entirely. I have no idea what happened to
> it. It simply disappeared, and all my messages with it. It is not in the
> Recycle Bin. Am using XP-Pro. Any idea how I can recover my lost messages?
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Ciao,
> :-)
> Tom

usoverseas wrote:
> Each time Outlook Express 6.0 closes, is asks for permission to compact
> e-mail messages to free up additional space on the hard drive. I accidently
> pressed "Yes", and saw that the program was starting to do something.

Had you let it do its thing, you would not be in this mess. Try Bruce's
suggestions but the next time it pops up, DO IT and don't touch ANYTHING
until it's done!

Alias

A dbt file is a backup of the dbx file prior to the compaction. If the
compaction is interrupted, then the dbt file remains and the dbx file is not
generated. However, I think that when OE starts again, it finds the dbt
file and deletes it and then generates a new dbx file that's blank. And
there go all your messages.

I think the only thing that will get them back is DBXpress with its extract
from disk function. It will find the disk clusters that comprised the dbt
file (the backup) and recover the messages (at least in part) from those
disk clusters, if they haven't been overwritten.

See www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/ and also see point 2 here
(www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx)

steve

"usoverseas" <usoverseas@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3E63081F-3593-48A1-95CE-76EE812B499D@microsoft.com...
> Each time Outlook Express 6.0 closes, is asks for permission to compact
> e-mail messages to free up additional space on the hard drive. I
> accidently
> pressed "Yes", and saw that the program was starting to do something. I
> then
> pressed Ctrl-Alt-Del a couple of times and eventually got it to stop. The
> next time I opened Outlook Express, all the messages in my Inbox had
> disappeared. In the store folder there was now a new entry (Inbox.dbt). I
> tried several ways to open it, or to copy it's contents to a newly-created
> Outlook Express folder (with a .dbx extension) but all with no luck. Now
> the
> new entry (Inbox.dbt) is missing entirely. I have no idea what happened to
> it. It simply disappeared, and all my messages with it. It is not in the
> Recycle Bin. Am using XP-Pro. Any idea how I can recover my lost messages?
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Ciao,
> :-)
> Tom

what is this on my outlook??
"usoverseas" <usoverseas@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3E63081F-3593-48A1-95CE-76EE812B499D@microsoft.com...
> Each time Outlook Express 6.0 closes, is asks for permission to compact
> e-mail messages to free up additional space on the hard drive. I
> accidently
> pressed "Yes", and saw that the program was starting to do something. I
> then
> pressed Ctrl-Alt-Del a couple of times and eventually got it to stop. The
> next time I opened Outlook Express, all the messages in my Inbox had
> disappeared. In the store folder there was now a new entry (Inbox.dbt). I
> tried several ways to open it, or to copy it's contents to a newly-created
> Outlook Express folder (with a .dbx extension) but all with no luck. Now
> the
> new entry (Inbox.dbt) is missing entirely. I have no idea what happened to
> it. It simply disappeared, and all my messages with it. It is not in the
> Recycle Bin. Am using XP-Pro. Any idea how I can recover my lost messages?
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Ciao,
> :-)
> Tom

Outlook, or Outlook Express? If the later:

Compacting your folders periodically is a must to keep OE
functioning well and at some point, you may lose all your saved messages if
you don't.

With SP2, automatic background compacting was removed due to
problems it caused. Now you will get a prompt to compact after 100
OE closings, which you should do. See this for more information:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

To keep things running smooth, and for faster compacting:

Do not archive mail in default OE folders. They will eventually
become corrupt and you may lose mail. 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.

And this is a very good option:

Steve Cochran has added a button in his new version of OE Tool
that will not only Compact All Folders, but at the same time,
resets the "Compact Check Count" to zero whenever you compact
manually. You will see the prompt again if you do not compact
before 100 closings.

http://www.oehelp.com/OETool/

It is still advised to check Work Offline before you compact.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS MVP - Outlook Express
~IB-CA~


"andrew weeks" <andrewloyweeks@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:e%23zqhYx7FHA.3544@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> what is this on my outlook??
> "usoverseas" <usoverseas@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:3E63081F-3593-48A1-95CE-76EE812B499D@microsoft.com...
>> Each time Outlook Express 6.0 closes, is asks for permission to compact
>> e-mail messages to free up additional space on the hard drive. I
>> accidently
>> pressed "Yes", and saw that the program was starting to do something. I
>> then
>> pressed Ctrl-Alt-Del a couple of times and eventually got it to stop. The
>> next time I opened Outlook Express, all the messages in my Inbox had
>> disappeared. In the store folder there was now a new entry (Inbox.dbt). I
>> tried several ways to open it, or to copy it's contents to a
>> newly-created
>> Outlook Express folder (with a .dbx extension) but all with no luck. Now
>> the
>> new entry (Inbox.dbt) is missing entirely. I have no idea what happened
>> to
>> it. It simply disappeared, and all my messages with it. It is not in the
>> Recycle Bin. Am using XP-Pro. Any idea how I can recover my lost
>> messages?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> --
>> Ciao,
>> :-)
>> Tom
>
>