Lost emails on reinstall of Windows

[dondadon]

I had to reinstall Windows yesterday which wasn't a major problem until I realised that it obviously reinstalled Internet Explorer and Outlook! When I started Outlook Express again it had cleaned everything out and I had a happy little email from Microsoft welcoming me to the fold.
Is there any way I can get my old emails back. The rules for all my folders are still there but sadly the folders are gone!!!

Many Thanks
Dondadon

 

[KeyTech]

U might be lucky if you kept your mails on a seperate drive!Do a search on all your drives (you may just have the one if you're using win98 or something) for *.dbx files.
These are the data files that contain all your messages. You will find Inbox.dbx, outbox.dbx and the likes, you have to see if there are two or more of inbox.dbx and if there is, the LARGEST one of the two (or more) will contain all your msgs. Although you may just get one inbox.dbx, which is only a few kb in size, this is the one that contains that happy little email from Microsoft!!
If you find a large .dbx file, post back and I will tell you what you can do to restore it...

But...to cut it short...(bit late for that!!)...I'm 99.99999 percent sure that you lost in when reinstalling Windows.... sorry.... Jay~

My new Tae Kwon Do website is up and running!!

http://www.airport-tkd.com

~KeyTech

 

[lewic]

friend of mine reformatted my hard drive and still managed to retrieve emails - no clue how they did it though, as thought this was impossible!

 

[rtichnor]

What version of Windows did you previously have on the system, and wich version was installed?

 

[dondadon]

i was using windows 98 and just reinstalled the same version after botching it up with "AdAware"!! - it suggested I remove a load of spyware software and when i did this everything sort of stopped and i could not access the backup i had made!! - great huh?!

 

[rtichnor]

I think KeyTech is right, you probably lost your mail when you re-installed windows. Did you re-install Windows in the same directory (c:\windows)? Windows probably overwrote your mail files if you did.
Re-install your backup software and neccesary patches and try to get that backup tape to restore.
You should find your mail files in C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook Express or C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook Express\Mail (sorry, I forget which one exactly, it's been a while). Restore these to a seperate area on your system and use the import function in Outlook Express to get your mail files back.
If you still can't restore the data, then take that tape to another machine and see what you can do. Good Luck!