Norton Internet Security / Norton AntiVirus

[jump44]

Norton invited me to compact my previous emails to save space. I did so, but now I find that the past three months emails (March-May) have disappeared. Those before and after those months are still there to see. How can I retrieve the missing 3 months of archived emails? 

[SendOfJive Norton Fighter]

Hi jump44,

It was probably your email client that suggested that it was time to compact your folders - Norton Internet Security and Norton Antivirus do not involve themselves with email client maintenance.  Some email clients are more prone to folder corruption than others, especially if compacting has not been done on a regular basis.  In any event, this is almost certainly an email client issue rather than a Norton issue.  What email program are you using?

[jump44]

Outlook express

[DaveH]

If you open your recycle bin do you see a bunch of .dbx files with the same name as the folders?

edit- sorry I forgot, they won't be .dbx files, they will have been renamed .bac

like inbox.bac, etc

[jump44]

Yes, I've located the files in recycle bin, with a folder.bak tag, e.g. Inbox.bak.  However, when I click "restore" and "OK", it doesn't reappear in Outlook Express. Actually, the message is that the file already exists (old date) and asks if I want to replace it with the same name file with today's date. I click "yes", and return to OEm  but the 3 months of past messages are still missing.

Is there something I've skipped?

[DaveH]

Yes, you need to change the file extentions.

Open outlook express and go to: Tools\ Options\ Matinence\ Store folder

The box that come up will show you the path to the storage folder, copy that entire line.

Close all the boxes and close outlook express

Click start \run and paste that line in the box to open the storage folder.

You will need to see all the file extentions, if you can't see them change your view settings to show all files and extentions.

Find inbox.dbx and rename it to inbox.bad

find the file you restored from the recyclebin inbox.bac and rename it to inbox.dbx

Open outlook express and see if all your mail is there.

Best of luck,

Dave

[SendOfJive Norton Fighter]

This may help:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-networking/we-clicked-compact-messages-i...

[Merrell88]

Dear DaveH,

Thank you so much for your advice above.  I somehow lost over 3,000 emails in my Inbox, maybe by hitting the "Compact" function or maybe because I just got a new exterior hard drive and did something weird.  But after trying your advice and renaming various files, I was finally able to restore them to my Inbox.  I am so grateful!  Thanks again.

Merrell