Find my files after backup restore

I had to reformat my hard drive after the operating system became corrupted. I ran restore from an external hard drive that had been backed up with Norton 360. I can't find my email address book or email folders in Outlook Express after the restore. Can anybody help with that?

 

Thanks.


tablesaw wrote:

I had to reformat my hard drive after the operating system became corrupted. I ran restore from an external hard drive that had been backed up with Norton 360. I can't find my email address book or email folders in Outlook Express after the restore. Can anybody help with that?

 

Thanks.


Welcome,

Were your 360 backups file and folder or full disk? How old is the backup?

Thanks

Did you have Norton set to back up your e-mail files? I believe they're excluded by default, because most e-mail providers store them on their servers. 

I used files & folders. Last backup was 11/6/11/

I have the email folders (which I haven't been able to access, but I see them) and I have some old .wab files from an old backup set from about 6 years ago but not my current ones. I've tried looking for it in special files but there are 20,000 files.

Are you saying you see them on your new hard drive, or that you can see them on your Norton Backup Drive when you go in to explore it, but can't get the Restore to recognize them and bring them back?

 

If the latter, you might need to delete the backup catalog (not the backup set; just one specific file I can point you to) and then run arestore to rebuild it.

 

If that sounds like what may be going on (let me know), then let's give this thread a little time for a backups expert to find it (I know one I can page) in case someone can come up with a better idea; failing that I'll re-engage and help you through.

I have found some of my folders on my PC hard drive but have not yet been able to access them with Outlook Express (my old email) or Outlook (my new email). When I search the portable file I see all the folders but some of them fail to restore. I can't find my current address book anywhere. Been trying to find out it might have a different extension than .wab.

 

Thanks for helping.

 

 

Well, I haven't helped much, so far--but we do what we can!

 

On this one, "what I can" is pretty much just page Guru DaveH, one of our backup specialists, to this thread to help sort you out. He can probably do it in his sleep; I'm on the East Coast, so it's time for me to get some sleep!

 

Good luck, and keep us posted....

Your putting me on the spot here,  I'm actually not too knowledgeable about the 360 backup feature because I use Ghost for all my backup needs.

 

But outlook express mail files are .dbx files, you will have one for each folder that has the same name as the folder did and a main index file called folder.dbx

The .wab file is the windows address book for outlook express.  For Outlook (not express) I always thought it was included in the .pst file that also holds all the mail.

 

For your outlook express mail, have you found all the .dbx files?

Dave


tablesaw wrote:

I have found some of my folders on my PC hard drive but have not yet been able to access them with Outlook Express (my old email) or Outlook (my new email). When I search the portable file I see all the folders but some of them fail to restore. I can't find my current address book anywhere. Been trying to find out it might have a different extension than .wab.

 

Thanks for helping.

 

 


Depending on the version of Outlook, you will have to IMPORT the email and address book files into the Outlook program.  To do so, open Outlook and click on the File Tab (upper left hand corner next to Home) and then click on Open.  In the next page, select Import to open the Import and Export wizard; select "Import from another program or file" and next.  Use the scroll box to select "Outlook Express 4.x, 5.x, 6.x or Windows Mail" and click on Next.  If you do not want to import the Internet Mail account settings, then click Cancel; the wizard will ask you if you still want to import the emails and address book anyway.  You may have to search for the files at this point (as DaveH pointed out, the email folders have a .dbx file extension and the address book has a .wab file extension.  These files should be located in your Documents and Settings folders of your User account.).

 

(Note:  These instructions are for Outlook 2010; if you have a different version, just click on the question mark in the upper right corner and search for Import in the help contexts.)

Thank you for your information. I can not import into Outlook because the backup restore didn't put my files into Outlook Express. I can see the presence of my OE folders in my Portable Restore. Some of them restore to an identity directory and some fail to restore. Can't find a reason why some restore and some don't. Can't find my OE address file on the Portable Restore or my hard drive.

 

In my searching for address file I have learned that they are a hidden file.

 

When I did my restore I did it to the same locations but maybe because of the reformat the same locations no longer exist. Is that the possible cause?

 

Since the restore I am using Outlook 2010 as my default email program.

 

 

Different locations (usually caused by a different user name) will cause these problems.

 

You should be able to tell the restore to put the files in some temporary directory and then tell Outlook to import from wherever the files are.  Keep going through the wizard until you get to a point of searching for the dbx files to import (you may be able to get them directly from the backup disk IF the files are not compressed or encrypted).

Concerning Outlook Express, I think your right about it not restoring to the same location. 

I assume you must be using Windows XP,  the default location for outlook express mail folders is:

C:\Documents and Settings\(user name)\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{very long string of numbers}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

 

Even if your user name is the same as before, that "very long string of numbers"  is a randomly geneterated GUID number.

The easiest way to restore your mail would be to restore all you .dbx files from your backup to a temporary location like a folder on your desktop and then use the import function in OE to import all your mail into the current installation.

 

Dave

OK, I've now gotten about 2/3 of my message foldersback into OE. Never have found my address book. It's a chore bebuilding it from the old emails.

If your missing folders then your missing some .dbx files because each folder should have it's own .dbx file.

 

For instance, I have a folder full of mail called Gmail, the file for that is Gmail.dbx

So if you remember the folder names you should be able to search for them that way.   If that dbx is present in the restored folder but didn't get imported for some reason, let us know and I'll tell you how to restore it another way.

 

The address book like I said is a .wab file and it was located at:

C;\ Documents and Settings\(username)\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book

 

I know it seems like a chore, but it's because your trying to restore it onto a different installation.   If it was the same install as before eveything would have gone right back into the same place and worked without you needing to do anything.

 

Dave