How do you recover lost email?!!

11/24/02 | Me

[kcvl]

HELP!!!

[peteram]

If you are using Win Xp I believe there is a feature that allows you to reset your computer to a previous time.

WOW! You mean Microsoft has found a way to bridge the space/time continuum??? Does Doc Brown know about this?

[Cultural Jihad]

Are you able to receive new emails still?

[LowOiL]

About the most you can do is email your friends and ask them to send the important stuff they might still have back to you. Bummer huh...

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

Does your ISP (Internet Service Provider) have a website? Maybe you could retrieve your email from there. My ISP has a website, and I get and compose all of my email from there. That's since my Outlook Express died. Just call them and ask if they have a website where you can retrieve email. I was without email for 2 months before I thought to call and ask them.

[js1138]

If you deleted it, it is in the deleted folder. Unless you took the active step of emptying the deleted mail folder. I have thousands of messaged in the deleted mail folder because I am too lazy to finish the deletion.

If messages are gone and are not in the deleted mail folder, you need some professional help. -- not kidding or being rude here --

[red-dawg]

Explain please...you're talking to an idiot!

nothing follows.

[LowOiL]

Some ISP's have online web mail reader sites. Earthlink and AOL does. You might be able to find alot of it still there. Go to your ISP server and do a search for it. What is your ISP (Earthlink, AOL, Mindspring???)

[JRandomFreeper]

You mean Microsoft has found a way to bridge the space/time continuum???

No, they are just stuck in the past and picking up a few files as they slowly grind forward in time is no big deal.

/john

[Senator Pardek]

I will call the service provider also.

I believe that e-mails downloaded through an e-mail client are not, by definition, held on one's ISP's servers. It would be scary if they were.

[js1138]

System restore does not necessaruil restore DATA. It is designed to correct for damage done by botched installations and misbehaving programs.

Pay attention -- you have lost data. It will probably NOT be restored by system restore.

[LurkerNoMore!]

I think some of your email is supposed to be lost about this time.....

[kcvl]

ROFLOL! Oh, PLEASE, I'm willing to learn!

[js1138]

Look in the Deleted Items folder and tell us what you find...

[Bella_Bru]

Did you accidently delete it? Did you have a virus? Was it a Yahoo or Hotmail account that you let go and did not check for a while?

[vikingchick]

Do you still have emails in your 'sent items' folder? If you do, you may still have a lot of info left (you know how when you respond to an email, it keeps the original letter sent to you. Am I making any sense here?)

[Senator Pardek]

Alumimimun - Phelectron!

[LowOiL]

What is your ISP (the last part of your email address, and don't put your full email here, just the last part).

Example: JohnDoe@Earthlink.com ...

Earthlink is your ISP.

[APBaer]

I'll ask just in case.
If you have a program called "Go Back" already installed it would have them

[red-dawg]

Okay, thanks for being a good sport. Please specify what OS, what email program you are using, and details, details, details.
However, there is a good chance they are gone.

[Cultural Jihad]

Here's a good article on recovering lost emails. It might be an easy fix to just tell Outlook Express to "View/Current View/Show All Messages" from the View menu, or may require some tweaking of your database files. If you decide to tweak any files, please do the smart thing and ask for help.

http://cooltech.iafrica.com/swissarmy/howto/155282.htm

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HOW TO...
Recover lost emails

Question
Hi.

Over the past few months I have been noticing something strange happing to my emails in my inbox. It seems that some emails I have received have disappeared. I have not deleted anything from my inbox, they are just gone.

Please help.

Answer
First check the obvious.
Click View -> Current View and be sure it is set to "Show All Messages". Also verify that "Show replies to my messages" is not checked or you will see only replies to your messages.

If the Current View setting is correct, then the *.dbx file for the problem folder has been damaged or deleted. Older versions of McAfee VirusScan are known to delete OE's *.dbx files if the email or Internet download scan is enabled. You can download a patch on the McAfee web site, or simply disable both the email and Internet download scan modules in VirusScan. These are not necessary to protect your computer if you still have VirusScan running in the background and scanning executable files as they are opened. In fact, the only real reason to use email and download scanning is to make you feel more secure. If this is the cause of your problem, I am sorry to say your messages are irretrievably lost.

In the case of a damaged "Inbox.dbx" file, a new Inbox with the default "Welcome to Outlook Express" message will have been created automatically, and will now be using the file "Inbox(1).dbx" or similar. Likewise a new *.dbx file will have been created for any of the "system" folders that are damaged, Drafts, Deleted Items, Outbox and Sent Items.

If your default email account is Hotmail or IMAP, the associated files will be named like "Hotmail - Inbox.dbx" or " - Inbox.dbx", etc.

However the original *.dbx file will still be there, although Outlook Express will be unable to display it.

If the damaged *.dbx file still exists, or its temporary version *.dbt, move it to a new empty folder in Windows Explorer. You can then try DBXtract to extract what messages it can.