E-mail folders disappeared

[FLABOB]

Hi folks, Newbie Here. Great Site.

Running MSN Mail on MSN Explorer v9.10 and XP Service Pack 2
installed.
No problems for about two years.

Yesterday, when accessing my e-mails, I noticed that my SENT MESSAGES
and ARCHIVED MAIL folders, along with two specifically name other
folders were missing, along with all the e-mails stored in these
folders. All four folders were on my DELL and all four contained quite
a few messages in each folder. Best info I could find so far is that
Internet Explorer mail handler gets confused (and slow) when dealing
with large numbers of files (e-mail messages). Have not found anything
more specific, nor any corrective measures. Microsoft has been
notified, and I understand that a correction to the large number of
messages problem will be released in Service Pack 3. In the meantime,
I have conducted searches for DBX files and have only located
FOLDERs(73KB), INBOX(37KB) , OFFLINE(10KB) and OUTBOX(50KB). Any Ideas
of where the other folders went? Can these be found and restored? IF
so, please provide details. Thanks in advance.

Regards
FLA Bob

 

[Rock]

Hi folks, Newbie Here. Great Site.

Running MSN Mail on MSN Explorer v9.10 and XP Service Pack 2
installed.
No problems for about two years.

Yesterday, when accessing my e-mails, I noticed that my SENT MESSAGES
and ARCHIVED MAIL folders, along with two specifically name other
folders were missing, along with all the e-mails stored in these
folders. All four folders were on my DELL and all four contained quite
a few messages in each folder. Best info I could find so far is that
Internet Explorer mail handler gets confused (and slow) when dealing
with large numbers of files (e-mail messages). Have not found anything
more specific, nor any corrective measures. Microsoft has been
notified, and I understand that a correction to the large number of
messages problem will be released in Service Pack 3. In the meantime,
I have conducted searches for DBX files and have only located
FOLDERs(73KB), INBOX(37KB) , OFFLINE(10KB) and OUTBOX(50KB). Any Ideas
of where the other folders went? Can these be found and restored? IF
so, please provide details. Thanks in advance.

Regards
FLA Bob

If you don't get any responses here you might want to post to an MSN
newsgroup. Here is a list of all MS public newsgroups:
http://aumha.org/nntp.htm

 

[Ron Sommer]

I am not familiar with MSN Mail.
You mention dbx files. Outlook Express uses dbx files. These files are
hidden.

Here is a post by PA Bear that addresses lost folders in Outlook Express.
--
Ron Sommer

Why it happens:

http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/problems/bugs.htm#mailgone
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/filecorruption.mspx

Recovering data: http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#4
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DBXtract
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx

DBXtend (additional functionality)
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtend/Default.aspx

DBXpress (faster, more powerful, with even greater functionality)
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

OEX (OE Enhancement Program)
http://www.oehelp.com/OEX/Default.aspx
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Avoid Such Corruption in Future:

- Don't use Inbox or Sent Items to archive messages. Move them to local
folders created for this purpose.

- Empty Deleted Items folder daily.

- Disable Background Compacting [N/A in SP2] and frequently perform a manual
compact of all OE folders while "working offline". More at
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/files/maintain.htm.

- Your anti-virus application's email scanning feature can also cause such
corruption. Disable it. It provides no additional protection.

- WinXP SP2 only: Do not shut down your machine if Windows is automatically
compacting your message store.

 

[PA Bear]

MSN Mail is also based on the DBX file structure, Ron, which is prolly one
reason why MSN now "owns" OE*, but I, too, am not in the least bit familiar
with MSN Mail's foibles. I can't imagine they're much different from OE's.

Can one compact MSN Mail folders? Does one need to do so? Dunno.

*The fact that Longhorn's Mail Client will not be named Outlook Express
won't be based on DBX file format (THANK YOU, JESUS!) is prolly the main
reason.
--
MSN-specific newsgroup:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.msn.discussion (to which I've
crossposted this reply)

~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE) & Security, AH-VSOP