Outlook Express inbox empty

Hi All,
I hope someone can help with this. I opened outlook express this am and as always had a lot of e mail in my inbox.
All of a sudden the computer rebooted (maybe a power bump)
Anyway all of my messages in the inbox were gone when i opened it back up.

I read this post http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=103894
and followed Matacumbie's advice:
With the folder selected that should contain the missing messages (Inbox), go to View > Current View and click on "Show all messages."

Unfortunately it did not work for me.
Does anyone have another way to try to retrieve the messages?

Thanks in advance,

Dan

 

Generally speaking, OE stores your stuff in one of two places, either:
C:\Windows\Application Data\Outlook Express\{GUID} (primarily older Windows versions before Win2000)

-OR- the much more likely location:
C:\Documents and Settings\<User Name>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{GUID}\Microsoft\Outlook Express.

In either case, the GUID is a long string of numbers and letters. The first thing I'd do is to go to one of these locations, when you find your files, copy them to a safe place (a desktop folder called "OE backup" should be fine). You'll be able to tell by the size of the .DBX files if the data got wiped out or corrupted. You should have file names like inbox.dbx, sent items.dbx, drafts.dbx, deleted items.dbx, etc. Once they're copied to a safe place, try using the import tool and point it to the 'safe backup' you just created, and with any luck it will import the files and you'll be OK. However, I'm FAR from any sort of OE expert, but I have some experience with saving emails for other people, and the first thing to do is to locate the data and make a copy of it (if it's still there with a modicum of integrity) to a safe place.
Good luck!
:-D

[dlb]

(a great resource for all things OE related is http://www.insideoe.com/ Check it out)

 

NOTE- you may need to enable the viewing of hidden files/folder and system files/folders. Open any Explorer window (open My Computer for example) and at the top, click Tools > Folder Options, click the View tab, then scroll down a little bit and make the appropriate changes so it has the same settings as the screen shot below....
:-D