blakes...
If the files you've recovered are legitimate .dbx files,
you can simply place them in a folder where you will be
able to find them, such as a created C:\a\ folder. Then
use Outlook Express's "import" function to restore them.
Open Outlook Express, then go to the File --> import -->
messages... Select your version of OE to import messages
from, and click "Next". Then select "Import messages from
an OE* store directory. Click "OK" and then browse to the
location of the folder with your .dbx files. Click "Ok",
and, if your files are valid, it will populate your folders
window with the folders full of emails.
Understand that each .dbx file is a folder, and should
have the name of the folder which it will become, so
your Inbox folder should be named "Inbox.dbx" and your
folder for AuntMary should be named AuntMary.dbx.
So 500 .dbx files means you've got 500 folders full
of messages, not just 500 messages.
I'm not clear on where your recovery program located these
lost files, and whether it had to manipulate them to
restore them into .dbx format, or whether it simply
found them on your hard drive, which you could do by
running "find" or "search" on all drives for *.dbx
but if your recovery program found them in, say,
files recovered by Scandisk, they may or may not be
restored to the point where they will be recognized
and integrated by Outlook Express when you import them.
When you say you "put the recovered files that were
said to be in 'good' condition in my outlook express
folder", it's not clear whether you just put them in
c:\program files\outlook express\ or whether you know
about Microsoft's clever trick of hiding the folder
which is meant to hold your .dbx files in an obscure
location.
On Windows 95 & 98, that would be:
c:\windows\application data\identities\
{7D1FEA66-5A0A-41E1-A12A-0F636AA4D74D}(or somesuch)\
microsoft\outlook express\ (all one line)
On XP or 2000, it will be:
C:\documents and settings\your windows username\
local settings\application data\identities\
{62B5ED6F-E854-4B83-AB42-60C1DD23DC1B}(or somesuch)\
microsoft\outlook express\ (all one address)
Before you attempt to import your files (which is
preferable to just placing them in the correct
folder), you may want to back up any current .dbx
files in the folder above (depending on your system)
to another location. Then try the import. If there
is already an inbox.dbx file in your folder, the
import function should just add the emails in the
"found" inbox.dbx file to the ones in your current
inbox file (if any). This would hold true for all
duplicate folder names - it will consolidate the
contents.
If the "restored" .dbx files are less than perfect,
and Outlook Express can't integrate and interpret
them, your best bet may be the tedious but workable
method suggested in vinods comment - use a text
editor like notepad to clean up and extract the
content of these folders. It's painstaking work,
and you won't have them in a format which Outlook
Express can use, but they will be readable and
savable as text files. This would seem to be the
only option left, if DBXtract couldn't read them.
If you need further assistance, please feel free to post
a request for clarification BEFORE rating this answer.
sublime1-ga |
Request for Answer Clarification by
blakes-ga
on
08 Oct 2002 10:43 PDT
Hi,
I've already tried placing the *.dbx into the correct MS "hidden"
path, that did not work. I have also tried what the member said
before you were able to which was to open the .dbx files and edit them
in Notepad. That process for me will not work, I can make out some
messages in Notepad but other messages are just "junk". The recovery
program I used did not use the Find command, I had already tried that
before I downloaded the recovery software. So I am assuming that the
recovery program did what you said about Scan disk, although I'm not
completely sure. Is there any hope in recovering my messages now?
|
Clarification of Answer by
sublime1-ga
on
09 Oct 2002 00:47 PDT
blakes...
The way you talk about them, it sounds like the files you
recovered are, currently, in the .dbx format...if that's
true, then I repeat that you can use the import function,
as I said at the beginning of my answer.
If anything about the import process is not clear, please
feel free to post another request for clarification.
If the files ARE in the .dbx format, then importing them
is your best (and, perhaps, only) option. If they are not
currently named .dbx files, that's another story, and I'll
need to start from scratch, though offhand, I'm not too
optimistic about the possibilities. Also, let me re-affirm
that, if the files ARE currently named with the dbx extension,
the name of the file will be the name of the folder when
you import them, so if you have a file named Inbox.dbx, it
will create a folder named 'Inbox' when it is imported.
So, if your recovery program was not able to save them with
their true names, and you have recovered files named 0001.dbx,
this will create a folder in OE named 0001 when you import it.
If the import is halfway successful, you'll be able to read
the emails (maybe not all of them) in that folder, and then
rename the folder to what it should be, based on the content.
Please keep me posted...
sublime1-ga
|
Request for Answer Clarification by
blakes-ga
on
09 Oct 2002 09:27 PDT
Hi,
Ok. The recovered files are in .dbx format, but importing does not
work, I had tried that and all sorts of other tricks but nothing
worked, which is when I came here and posted my problem. Can anything
else be done?
|
Clarification of Answer by
sublime1-ga
on
10 Oct 2002 21:34 PDT
blakes...
I've been playing with my own Outlook Express installation for
a couple of hours, and found that just copying .dbx files into
the right directory doesn't work (I'm using 5.0), and further,
that importing files from a "store directory" doesn't work
unless there's a folder.avx and a folder.dbx file in the
directory that references the folders you're trying to
import. Did DBXtract say anything about that?
I've searched for .avx files in relation to Outlook Express,
in hopes that someone's come up with a way to create the
needed folder.avx files to allow importing of the folders
you have, but I only found 17 hits, none of which look
useful.
I haven't completely given up yet, but the "outlook" looks
pretty bleak, sorry to say. Just wanted to let you know I
was working on it.
Searches done, via Google:
.avx files "outlook express" -virus
://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=.avx+files+%22outlook+express%22++-virus
sublime1-ga
|
Clarification of Answer by
sublime1-ga
on
13 Oct 2002 12:38 PDT
blakes...
Problem solved!!!!!!!!
I finally searched out DBXtract and downloaded it,
via a reference to it from this page, on Mindspring.com,
by an anonymous writer, which has excellent information:
http://www.mindspring.com/~oe_oh/recovering_a_lost_message_store.htm
In reading the description of the DBXtract program, by
S.L. Cochran, Ph.D, on his page here:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx
some things remained unclear, in terms of our previous
dialogue:
"The program works by reading the location of the data
message stores from the Registry and then loading those
into the Path combo box. It then searches the path and
loads the dbx filenames that are present in that path
into the File combo box."
Since it searches the registry for the message stores,
when I ran it on my machine, it simply located the store
of folders already in the path of Outlook Express, and
therefore already showing up in the OE program when I
opened it. This means that, if DBXtract located folders
which are not being loaded into your OE program, they
nonetheless exist, intact, somewhere on your hard drive,
which means you could import them, as they are, using OE's
import function.
When you use the DBXtract program to recover messages, it
lists the 'Input' path it is using to recover from, so you
should be able to locate these files in this manner, and
just use the 'import' function in OE.
Regardless of that, the instructions go on to say:
"it is important that OE is closed when the program is in use"
which, I assume, you heeded.
It also says:
"After extracting the messages one can drag them from a Windows
Explorer folder into an Outlook Express mail folder."
This seemed to imply that DBXtract extracts messages, or .eml
files, rather than .dbx files, which I discovered to be true
when I downloaded DBXtract and played with it. It first located
the store of folders from my current OE installation by looking
at their location in the registry. As I said, you could just go
to that location, using OE's import function, and import them
in one easy move. However, I wanted to see how this program
worked, so I made a copy of all my .dbx files in OE's hidden
directory, and copied them to a new location. When I browsed
DBXtract to that location, it again discovered all the folders,
and allowed me to select one folder at a time under the 'File'
drop-down box, and extract the messages from that folder file.
What's important here is that it extracted message files, in the
form of .eml files, rather than the folders themselves, in the
form of .dbx files. Once it extracts these files, you should be
able to double-click them and OE will open them as an email
message. Or, you can drag-and-drop them - not into the hidden
folders directory I spoke of before, but into an OE folder in
the OE program itself. Here's how:
After recovering all your emails, they will be in the DBXtract
folder, and you can see them there in Windows Explorer. Now
open up Outlook Express. Then use your cursor to resize both
Windows Explorer and Outlook Express, until you have both of
them visible on your desktop at the same time. Make sure you
have the 'Folders' list visible on the left of your OE window.
Then, just left-click on the email message of your choice in
the Windows Explorer window, and, holding the mouse button down,
drag it to the folder of your choosing in the OE window. It
will then appear as a message in that folder.
If you need to create appropriate folders for the messages, do
so before you need to drag & drop them.
This will take some time, but it will be a lot quicker and
cleaner than trying to read messages from the .dbx files in
NotePad.
However, I will emphasize again that, if DBXtract is recovering
these messages from .dbx files that it locates by reading your
registry, then the .dbx folder files already exist, and can be
directly imported into OE using the instructions I gave you
before. Having familiarized yourself with the location which
DBXtract is using in its 'input' path, just use OE's import
function to browse to that store directory and import them.
Chances are very good that, if DBXtract is able to identify the
folders and extract the messages, then OE will also recognize
them, and recover the entire set of folders and messages in
one 'swell foop'....... :)
Searches done, via Google:
recovering "outlook express" folders
://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=recovering+%22outlook+express%22++folders
sublime1-ga
|
Clarification of Answer by
sublime1-ga
on
13 Oct 2002 12:52 PDT
blakes...
Oops! I just re-read your original question, and noticed
that you said that DBXtract was unable to read the messages
from the recovered .dbx files. Imagine my embarrassment.
The next thing would be to know the name of the program
you used to recover the .dbx files (which DBXtract can't
read), in the first place. If more is known about how that
program recovered the 'lost' .dbx files, it may be possible
to recover them in another way, which might allow them to
be read by OE or DBXtract.
Sorry for the useless info in my previous clarification...
sublime1-ga
|
