Email crash. Need help!
 

Seems I just suffered an email crash. Lost about 16,000 emails in my inbox.
Yes, I do have a backup, but it's a couple weeks old.

Using Outlook Express. I went to check email. The server had some sort of error..email would not download (still won't) and Outlook hung. Shut down Outlook, and now there is NOTHING in my inbox.
I still have email in my sent folder, so I can go through that and see who I've been communicating with lately...but what a hassle.

There's other very important stuff in that inbox that I need though.

This happened a few years ago. One of my old custoemrs is a Computer Forensics guy in Germany.. he suggested a program that I forget the name of, but it worked beautifully to recover lost email. "Forensic something or other" ...

Anybody know of a good program to recover lost email?
By inbox .dbx file is 1.99GB's....

Update:

I think the program was called Forensic Toolkit by a company called Accessdata.
Trying it now. If it works, I'll report back. I'm sure there are others who have suffered email crashes.

It has over 16,000 emails to recover...:eek:

A big part of your problem, is that the inbox file size is too large. OE is limited to 2 gigs - but things start going wrong at about 1.8-9 gigs. What version of OE are you using?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/903095

Dave

The version that comes with XP.

I've never had problems with a 2GB+ file size before. I think the most I had ever had was about 6GB during the las crash, a couple years ago.
I did notice a couple months ao though that when doing a search through email for addresses or words, sometimes the seach worked, sometimes it didn't. I wonder if it's rlated...


I wonder if OUTLOOK (not express) would have a larger file size capability?

I'll read that link, thanks. If I could get customers to stop sending large images of thier instruments, if it might help...

Oh..one more thing to ad. According to the file peroperties, I'm close to 2GB at 1.99GB...so not quite here yet....hm....

It would not be possible to have a file larger than 2 gigs. OE and versions of Outlook earlier than 2003 had a file size limitation. It's a pain to get the email back, but doable.

Here is another link to MS and a way to get things going...
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=296088

Yeah, Outlook has a file size limit. Used to be 2 gb, think it's now 4, at least for Entourage (Mac version of Outlook) it is.

One of the reasons I hate MSFT. I hit the 2gb limit and THEN it said, "hey dude, you hit your 2 gb limit, so sorry, all your mail is toast". To add insult to injury 2 weeks after they issued an upgrade that bumped the limit to 4 gb and now when you get close to the limit it warns you beforehand.

Hey Dave, Ray showed up today. He got a speeder an hour out. 70 MPH zone, clocked at 90, he was quick on the brakes or it would have been higher;)

Just for giggles you may want to install Thunderbird and see if it will import your mail for you - just to see if it will read the file and back it up.

Since it's outlook express, you can search for the file: Inbox.dbx You may find more than one, but you will know by size which one is the one you want. Rename (ie old.dbx) and copy it to a different location - best to copy not cut so you don't mess with the original. Then with outlook express see if you can import that file. If successful, time to clean it up.

I did that a bit ago. It imported everything BUT the Inbox.

I was able to recover SOME of it using something I found at Slodave's link. I went from 16,000+ emails to about 4,000...plus 1733 messages that have attachments that I moved to thier own folder. So a bit less than 6,000 recoveredd.. I lost 10,000 emails there...

Damn Microsuck.:mad:

If you have a copy of the original file, I can probably get the emails for you, but getting the file to me and back will be fun.

OK, back up....

WHY do you have 6GB worth of mail in your Inbox, and why are you using OE?

Wolfe, you not just 'some guy' that happens to make 'guitar stuff'. Your a business. Perhaps its time to start looking at something a bit more robust than your current setup?

When I'm reading this, its like, "I tried to cross the pacific ocean in an XYZ brand row boat. It got swamped in storm and I almost died! Damn those XYZ rowboats!"

That'll be the easy part. I can upload to the website. lol.
Long as you've got high speed, downloading should be a snap.



Well... I guess I just don't think about it. OE is quick, simple to deal with. And with as busy as I am these days, that's what I need.
But yeah, I guess it's time for more robustness.