[RESOLVED] What a mess

Trying to help a friend out. He had a crash, lost some files. We used the recovery CD that came with his computer and got it back up and running. He thought that now would be a good time to UPGRADE from WINDOWS ME to WINDOWS XP so we did, but some folders were missing from his Outlook Express. He had created some folders to seperate his e-mail. These folders are gone. I've found some .dbx files with the same name as his lost folders but they won't open. I draged them to the folder that it looks like they belong in but still can't get them to open. I even created folders with the same name as the missing ones but they're empty. How can I get these .dbx files back to the folder that they belong in. It looks like there are two sets of .dbx files for his Outlook Express. Maybe one from Win ME and one from Win XP? Any help would be welcome. Thanks. :confused:

OE has an import wizard. I've never used it, but this is how you'd get the information into OE.

I tried that and it didn't work either. :confused:

Could try this, it's try before you buy.
http://www.mailnavigator.org/mailnavigator.html

vogenw--Do I understand correctly that these .dbx files are in folders with names other than the usual--Inbox, Sent Items, etc.? If so
Click on the word Inbox at the left just under the usual Toolbar. (I presume you do not find a folder named the same as these orphaned .dbx files.) Right click on Inbox in the list of folders. Choose New Folder and create a new folder or folders with the name(s) of the folder(s) in which you find the orphans.
Now, in OE, click Tools|Options|Maintenance tab|Store Folder. Copy the location of the Store Folder and navigate to it in Windows.
In the Store Folder window, delete the folders that have the names in which the orphan .dbx files exist. Drag and drop the folders containing the orphaned files into the Store Folder. Now these .dbx files should be in the list when open their folder in OE, itself.
Otherwise, if you are willing to spend $5 the .dbx files can be read and rescued by using DBXtract
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx

Yes the .dbx files were found at C:/ Documents and Settings/Dave Kowalski/Application Data/Identities/{E2E0D694-0EDD-4B32-95B4-9151781B2F63}/microsoft/outlook express The only items in this folder were .dbx files such as sent items.dbx , folders.dbx , daves.dbx , lauries.dbx , inbox.dbx , and so on. I have two seperate Outlook Express folders. They both have the normal inbox, outbox, sent items .dbx files but one of them has the missing Daves, Lauries and ebay .dbx files. I guess one is left over from Win ME and one is from Win XP. I've tried draging and droping from one outlook to the other but I still don't have the folders that go with the files. I have the normal inbox, outbox, sent items and so on folders but not the missing ones. I created new folders for the orphaned .dbx files but they are still empty. Wally

You could try using this free program to open the dbx files to see if they're actually the ones you want to import and/or extract the data from them into a doc for further use.

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...scription.html

Thanks that program that you posted a link to seems to have taken care of the problem. Thanks again :)