[BellStar]

Help!

[doug from upland]

That also happened to me about two weeks ago. My ISP told me that it might be able to be recaptured by reinstalling Outlook Express. Since I can't find my original disk, I didn't do it. I don't know whether that has worked for anyone else.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Weird things happen when you use Norton. There's no fighting it...

[Chad Fairbanks]

You may have the options Unread Only and/or Flagged Only ticked in the View menu. Just select either one of them to untick it, and the messages should reappear.

Otherwise, if this is not the problem, then either rebuild the database files (press Option when launching OE, to initiate it), or transfer all email & settings to a new 'Identity', and bin the old one. Because your current set of Identity files are damaged in some way.

[Mike Darancette]

Why didn't you move items out of your inbox to another box after you read them?

I've accidentially deleted my inbox many times.

Was "Sent Items" empty as well? How about "Deleted Items"?

[da_toolman]

That and look into McAfee internet security, much more features than Norton, and seems to be more system friendly.

[Alberta's Child]

This sounds exactly like what happened to our company Outlook folders a few months ago.

Microsoft couldn't even figure out what went wrong -- and we never recovered our Outlook folders, either.

[mlo]

I've seen this happen more than once. It may have nothing to do with Norton.

If, for any reason, Outlook Express is unable to open the Inbox file when it starts it simply creates a new Inbox and proceeds. The old one is not gone. Find the directory where the mailboxes are stored and you should see more than one Inbox (with the new one named "inbox1" or something like it). The old one will be named just "inbox".

I'll see if I can find the steps for recovery written down somewhere, it would be easier than me trying to explain it.

This is a good reason not to leave mail in your Inbox with Outlook Express.

[Greg Packer]

You should have copied all your messages down with pencil and paper. Never trust the internet or computers for communication.

[FreedomCalls]

Damned Democrats! You have to give a portion of your in-box to the government to distribute to the "in-box disadvantaged" so that people who get less e-mail than you will have more in their in-boxes. It was a part of the "No In-box Left Behind Act of 2003."

[TomServo]

Check Outlooks mail server settings. It'll probably be set to some crap Symantec put in there when you installed AV....

Change the mail server settings to your ISPs recommended settings. This is why I quit using Symantec Anti-Virus. You may want to consider uninstalling it...

[mlo]

Check this out, see if it helps.

http://www.mindspring.com/~oe_oh/recovering_a_lost_message_store.htm

[eggman]

Why do you store 1000+ messages in your inbox? if the messages are important why not organize them into folders and then make sure you backup the folders. You can use rules to have emails from certain senders moved automatically or you can simply drag-n-drop the emails into the proper folders.

Microsoft Outlook & Outlook Express are prone to corruption as the number of emails and the size of the folder increase but I've seen people who have several hundered megabyte email folders in Outlook with no apparent problem until... Once the folder is corrupted it is usually next to impossible to recover the messages.

[xrp]

Outlook Express will automatically perform maintenance on itself at times. So the data might have been archived or deleted.

[c-b 1]

If your OS is Windows 2000 professional it will dump your in box when it accumulates a certian number of messages. If you put the messages you want to save into folders that won't happen.

[bobwoodard]

Which OS do you use? If you've logged on with a different login name (or didn't log into your normal domain), it's possible that your OE mail files are in a different folder now, based on another login name.

[Jeff Gordon]

Anyone using Outlook deserves whatever trouble may come their way. The majority of the effect email viruses are targeted for Outlook's security holes.

[nutmeg]

bump

[BlackbirdSST]

This hardly sounds like a problem from using Norton. I've been using the same versions and haven't seen or heard of this relating back to Norton, it's more likely your viewing options in Outlook. Blackbird.

[Havisham]

First: don't panic. Try this. Folders-Windows-Application

Data-Microsoft-Outlook Express (or other Outlook

browser). You should recognize files with the names of

your folders. This confirms your content isn't wiped

out, just delinked because of a corrupted browser.

You'll need to reinstall the application. To do this,

click properties on your Outlook shortcut then

the 'find target' button. Double click the highlighted

app file. It should start to install itself.

Outlook updates may

have to be reinstalled but at least you'll have your

content back. Good luck.