How to recover my emails from the Outlook Express after the compression?

[andrspalma]

After compressing email files on the Outlook Express I lost thousands of emails for about the one year. How can I recover this info?

[SamT]

You didn't make a copy of the mail database first? Oops


How can I recover this info?
I don't know. You might have to ship the hard drive (or a clone of it) to a data recovery business.

OTOH, someone here might know a way.

I would turn off that computer RIGHT NOW until I knew for sure so as to not overwrite the data on the hard drive. If you clone the HD, do it on a different computer, not that one.

[ketonen]

Your precompressed files can be found in your Recycle Bin, with a .bak extension. So your Inbox folder is called Inbox.bak in the Recycle Bin. To restore that to OE:

First find the OE store directory, which will be listed as the "Original Location" for the folder files in the Recycle Bin. (It's something like C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\<32 char string>\Microsoft\Outlook Express.)

Select all the OE folder files in the Recycle Bin, right-click on them, and choose Restore.

Now navigate to the OE store directory. Rename all the .dbx files to something like .new (don't delete them until you know everything is working properly), except for Folders.dbx, which needs to be left alone. So Inbox.dbx becomes Inbox.new.

Rename all the .bak files (which were restored from the Recycle Bin) to .dbx (Inbox.bak becomes Inbox.dbx).

Restart OE. All your original files will be used.
Also, I think that this information will be useful to you.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/918069
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/432cc822-fffd-410a-932c-aabc3c3ceaac/outlook-express-repair?forum=itproxpsp

[andrspalma]

Unfortunately, in my recycle bin are no files with the extention .bak. There are the extention .dbx only. So, when I made a right click at the files there is no option to Restore. I move those files to the New Folder for the safety. Possible it was my mistake. Please tell me what should I do to restore this info if possible?
Thank you for trying to help me in resolving this problem.

[SamT]

See if Outlook will Import them

[ketonen]

I'm confused. If you have files in the Recycle Bin, right-clicking on them should always include a Restore option. I'm not sure what you mean about a New Folder.
In your Recycle Bin, do you have a file with "Inbox" as the name and any extension? If so, what extension does it have? Do you have other files in the Recycle Bin that have the names of your OE folders? What files are in a "New Folder"?

[SamT]

IRL, there are no "folders" or "files" "inside" the Recycle Bin

Explorer.exe displays a list of almost deleted file names as the Recycle Bin. The Folder Icons on this display represent blocks of the Hard Drive's FAT. There is no way to see the "Content" of these blocks without first Restoring the "Folder."

[andrspalma]

Thank you guys for your feedback and help. Sorry, that long time did not respond. This is because the issue was solved and I forgot to tell.) Thank you!

[SamT]

How did you solve it?