Wrong type of email backup

[GaryB]

I am using Vista and recently needed to reformat my C drive and dutifully
copied all of the files from the drive to an external hard drive. After
reformatting the hard drive, I statred up the default email program (Windows
Mail) and tried to import from my external drive. This does not seem to be
an option. I alos tried to use the easy transfer with the same difficulty.
I have all of the data, so I tried to just copy the files from the external
hard drive to the Local|Microsoft|Windows Mail folder and can see the headers
for all of the messages but cannot get the properties nor message contents to
display.

Is there a way to import from the 'backup' I have? Is there a way to repair
the damage?

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

Windows Mail can't import directly from an external drive.
Copy the following folder in its entirety from your backup to an empty
folder under your profile (under 'Documents' is good):
\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail.
Then open Windows Mail, click on File, Import, Messages, Microsoft
Windows Mail 7, and point it to that backup folder under Documents.