We have been running Windows 98 SE; 10 gigabyte HD; 800 MHz (?)Intel
Pentium III chip set; Outlook Express 6.0; various software; usual
other accessories. We tried to install a Pioneer DVD+/-RW drive.  It
turns out the drive was defective (all 4 connector pins shorted to
ground), it blew the
power supply (big ominous puff of smoke!), which in turn fried the
motherboard, the board controlling the HD, the CD-ROM drive, graphics
card, and modem card. An EE friend managed to save all the files and
folders on the HD by replacing the temporarily replacing the HD
controller board, then we rebuilt the computer using a 2.4 GB Pentium
IV chip set, new motherboard,40 GB HD, HP DVD+/-RW, etc., etc. HERE'S
THE PROBLEM:  We "lost" (see below) all the info. in the In-Box and
Out-Box of Outlook Express, or at
least we can't find it.  We essentially cloned the data (ca. 3.9 GB)
from
the damaged HD and stored it in a folder (labeled "backup") on the new
HD -- so we think the "lost" data we're after is in there somewhere. 
We did manage to restore everything I had in My Documents to the new
computer, and we also managed to restore the Address Book from Outlook
Express to the new computer. Is there any way to find and restore the
In-Box and Out-Box data to the new system?  I had installed Norton
SystemWorks 2002 on the crashed system, and when we were trying to
restore the system files from the crashed HD, a file kept popping up,
"SBserv" (or possibly "SLserv"), that said something like, "Your
system
is performing an illegal operation, etc., etc. ... " and wouldn't let
us restore the system files.  So we had to reinstall all the software
again.  QUESTION:  Can someone give us specific detailed instructions
on how to find and re-install this "missing" Out-Box and In-Box
information?  There are many inportant documents attached to many,
many e-mails (both coming in and going out).  Please keep it as simple
as possible as we're not experts in the field.

Hi frank2-ga,

This type of situation certainly can be stressful, but I believe the
following steps will resolve your problem. Since you didn't mention
changing your operating system when rebuilding the computer, I have
assumed that this is the same for the newly rebuilt system. I have
tried to keep it as simple as possible, as per your request:

STEP 1: Finding the right file(s)

Message data for Outlook Express 6 is stored in *.dbx files - you can
search everything that you have recovered by doing the following:

(a) Go to Start > Find > Files and Folders

(b) Search for files named *.dbx (the * represents a wildcard, so the
search results may return anything with the .dbx extension) within the
backup folder you mentioned in your question

(c) Copy all search results to a new folder (preferably outside the
folder of recovered files) so you can find them easily later on.

(d) Ensure that all the *.dbx files that you've found and copied are
NOT set to read-only. You can ensure this by right-clicking on each
file, going to properties, and ensuring that the checkbox with the
label "Read Only" is unchecked.



STEP 2: Importing your file(s) back into OE6

Now that you have the files containing your message data, you need to
import them back into OE6 using the Import function as follows:

(a) Open Outlook Express 6

(b) Go to File > Import > Messages 

(c) Select the OE6 format from the list and point to the directory
containing the *.dbx files that you found in Step 1.

Google Groups - Importing Store Folders:
http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=%23E%247NzIhCHA.2544%40tkmsftngp11&rnum=9&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DISO-8859-1%26q%3Dmessage%2Bfile%2Blocation%2Boe6%2Bgroup%253Amicrosoft.public.win98.internet.outlookexpress%2Bgroup%253Amicrosoft.public.win98.internet.outlookexpress%26meta%3Dgroup%253Dmicrosoft.public.win98.internet.outlookexpress

OLEXP: How to Back Up and Recover Outlook Express Data
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q270670


This procedure *should* get your messages back into their respective
folders within Outlook, but considering what you machine has endured,
there is a chance that your *.dbx files have become corrupted. In this
case, I have come across a free utility called DBXtract which can try
to recover your messages:

http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/

If you are interested, there is also an enhanced version of this
program called DBXtend which provides more powerful features for
extracting and manipulating messages:

http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtend/

Hopefully the above will solve your quandry - if you are having
problems understanding any of this information please post a
clarification and I will gladly respond.

Cheers!

answerguru-ga