If background compacting was not checked, how often do you compact manually?
Moving or deleting messages does not retrieve wasted space until you
compact.

Bloated folders and interrupting compacting are the two most common reasons
for losing messages, but other things can cause it as well, such as e-mail
scanning.

Bottom line is that you should backup OE daily if you value your messages.

At this point, the reason is moot. If you are sure background compacting was
not involved, then any of these programs may retrieve your messages.

Macallan Outlook Express Extraction:
http://www.insideoe.com/resources/tools.htm#macallan

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

DBXpress: {much faster for large files}
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"Larry" wrote in message
...
Yes, Show All Messages is checked and nothing else is checked.

The way this happened was: my computer froze last night and I restarted
it
by pressing the external restart button on the tower, which I regularly do
when the computer freezes, which happens fairly frequently (Win 98!). But
there was no compacting of OE going on at the time.

And yes, I regularly follow all those steps for OE maintenance. I allow
up
to a month of messages in Inbox and Sent box, keeping older messages in my
own custom folders.

But it's still a mystery how this happened. I have never had a saved file
on the hard drive simply become empty. Could it indicate a hard drive
failure?

Larry




"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
While in the Inbox, View | Current View. Is Show All Messages checked and
nothing else?

If that is the case, and the Inbox.dbx file is empty, (130KB is
essentially
empty), In Tools | Options | Maintenance, is: Compact messages in
background
checked? If so, OE was probably compacting the message store when you
shut
OE down, causing the loss of messages. (Why this option was removed with
XP?SP2).

Should this be the case, DBXpress run in Extract From Disk Mode has the
best
chance to recover messages:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx


General precautions for Outlook Express:

Do not archive mail in default OE folders. They will eventually become
corrupt. Create your own user defined folders for storing mail and move
your
mail to them. Empty Deleted Items folder regularly. Keep user created
folders under 100MB, and Default folders as empty as is feasible.

After you are done, follow up by compacting your folders manually while
working *offline* and do it often.

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything
until
the compacting is completed.

Turn off e-mail scanning in your anti-virus program. It is a redundant
layer
of protection that eats up CPUs and causes a multitude of problems such
as
time-outs and account setting changes. Your up-to-date A/V program will
continue to protect you sufficiently. For more, see:
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#3

In Tools | Options | Maintenance: Uncheck Compact messages in background
and
leave it unchecked. {N/A if running XP/SP2}.

And backup often.

Backup & Resto
http://www.insideoe.com/backup/

This is a great two click program:

Outlook Express Quick Backup (OEQB)
http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"Larry" wrote in message
...
In OE 6, Windows 98, the entire contents of the Inbox just vanished
after
restarting computer. There were about 4 weeks of e-mail in there.

Other folders do not seem to be affected.

I looked in the Outlook Express folder on my hard drive, and the Inbox
file
at this address:

C:\WINDOWS\Application
Data\Identities\{9226D728-E116-11DA-8D61-00045A5FABE0}\Microsoft\Outlook
Express

was down to something like 130 KB, containing just a lot of unreadable
code.

I normally move Inbox contents to other folders regularly to keep Inbox
from
getting too large.

I've never seen anything like this. The contents of a huge file simply
vanishing.