How can I retrieve a deleted email from MSN?

My DH accidentally deleted an e-mail he received from someone in our MSN/Verizon DSL mailbox. He knows it was from May/June 2006 but doesn't know where it is. It must've been deleted. We need it to back something up that we were wrongly charged for. I've seen software online that can retrieve messages but isn't that after the fact. What can we do now? I would assume MSN would have files but maybe not. I've tried e-mailing them to see but haven't heard back yet. Any ideas? Is it gone forever?

 

If they are still in your trash you can open it and recover them . HOwever, as that is auto-emptied daily I doubt it is there. Items that have been fully deleted are not recoverable.

http://help.msn.com/(ZmlsdGVyPURIX0...ilter=&querytype=keyword&query=PIM_Inbox&fs=1

 

How does law enforcement do it then? Just wondering because I'm sure people who are up to no good delete their files/emails. Then it seems like they're able to dig it up somehow. I thought MSN would have to keep everything for a year or two. Guess not. Oh well. Thanks for responding.

 

One way that files are retrieved is by running software that searches the hard drive for any file data that can be recovered. Obviously this isn't something that can be done on your web-based emails. And even if the email were on your hard drive, you would have to stop using it immediately and slave it to another hard drive (slaving it means making another hard drive the one that boots up and does the work while the one you want to search sits there and waits to be called upon) because the section of the disk that the data is on may get new data written to it erasing the info you wanted back.

So quite often this retrieval of information is being done on someone's own computer using very sophisticated software that can even, I believe, find data on sections of the disk that have been overwritten.

Hope there wasn't that much money involved for you people.