Recover messages from damaged Inbox.DBX

Hi Guys,

I have a friend who's Outlook xpress 5.2's inbox.dbx file gets corrupted, this would be the third time, renaming it and allowing Outlook express to build a new one gets him up and running again.
I have no idea as to what is causing the problem.. he claims OLE locks up during the mail transfer.. when he restarts OLE the splash screen comes up then OLE closes.. delete/rename inbox.dbx and OLE is working again..ideas on this? anyone?
also this fellow has some "important" messages locked one of these damaged files and wants me to try to recover it.. @#%&? the files are at least 40Mb in length.. I know if I can extract his messages I may find a clue to the problem..
I am not familuar with the structure of the dbx files and am clueless after using hex and text editors on the damaged files. any clues or perhaps a utility that may help would be appreciated. I am not expecting miracles..

Thanks..



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The Name is not my Job..
It is my driving style..

Hi, Here's a little program designed to extract mail from dbx files. Don't know if it will work with a damaged file though. But it's worth a try.
http://www.webattack.com/screenshots/dbx.htm

EDIT> incidentally 40megs for dbx files is, as you indicated, pretty damn big. Perhaps that's the problem. There must also be some attachments in there as well. Maybe saving them elswhere on the drive and deleting the larger emails would help. Also compacting the folders would be a good thing (to save space if nothing else)

[This message has been edited by fink (edited 03-31-2002).]

Happy Easter!
Fink - I just downloaded that the other day to extract messages from a computer I was working on. I got it straight from the source, where there is a good little readme... http://chattanooga.net/~scochran/DBXtract.htm
It worked.

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Just trying to give others a friendly hand.

Thanks Guys,

Just downloaded and about to try it out..


Cheers


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The Name is not my Job..
It is my driving style..

Ah, Herr Herring... Happy Easter to you too...Must be nice in the Gatineau's this time of year. Sunshine, warm(ing) weather, lots of streams from melting snow, birds singing, computers breaking.. oops, I mean chipmunks waking from a winter's slumber...

geez I am rude..

Happy Easter Guy's..

errr spring??? just had our first cool day since november the days max droped below 90 degs F... at last..

OBTW.. loooks like with your help.. 500 messages have been recovered for my friend.. no clue as to why.. I think a change of AV software may be in order..

thanks again..

Cheers


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The Name is not my Job..
It is my driving style..