I saved years of emails in various folders (wherever outlook default hides
them) in outlook 2003.
All of the "folders" you see in Outlook are not really folders at all, in the
same way the Windows file system keeps folders. All of Outlook's folders are
kept in a single database, the PST (or the Exchange mailbox, for an Exchange
environment).
Suddenly I cannot find the folders. I do not think I
deleted them.
That's the only way in Outlook that they could have disappeared. Outlook
cannot delete folders on its own. If you do delete a folder, it gets moved to
Deleted Items just like all other items you delete, becoming a subfolder of
it. To restore a deleted folder, you expand the plus sign to the left of
"Deleted Items" in the Navigation Pane and drag the folder back to its former
parent. If you've emptied Deleted Items, of course this is no longer possible
and you'll have to restore the folder from your most recent backup. You do
make frequent backups. correct?
If I did can they be restored? Is there a way to search .pst for the
folders?
You can't search for folders with any native Outlook tool, but you can search
for a message that was in the moved folder, if you remember one.
