If our instructions are not helping, perhaps one of the web sites
have the answer.
http://www.codeconscious.com/outlook-express/corrupted-oe-inbox.html
1. Ensure OE6 is closed before starting.
2. Create a folder c:\data and copy the entire contents of my
Identities\{YOUR_IDENTITY_STRING}\Microsoft\Outlook Express"
to c:\data
3. Rename C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\
{YOUR_IDENTITY_STRING}\Microsoft\Outlook Express\inbox.dbx to inbox.dbx.old
4. Start up OE6; it will create an empty Inbox and will show only one message
5. From the menu, open File->Import->Messages.
Choose Outlook Express 6. Click Next.
6. Choose Import mail from an OE6 Identity and select your identity
(Mine was Main Identity). Click OK.
7. Browse to the folder c:\data. Click Next.
8. Choose Inbox. Click Next.
9. Messages from your Inbox should appear in your new Inbox. Click Finished.
Now, as far as I am concerned, if the old Inbox was corrupted, step 9 might
not necessarily succeed. You may or may not get access to the old messages
that were in the Inbox. But step 4 should have at least given you a
working but empty Inbox. You would not attempt to fetch new mail, until
*after* step 9, so that any new messages coming in, arrive in some
kind of order.
In Step 3, the file path there is pretty long, and it contains variable
parts. For example "Owner" would be "AlanHolmes". And YOUR_IDENTITY_STRING
is pretty random looking. it will be a GUID something like {12345DF6-7C8F-654F-B1CF-F654321D1234}.
To make it easier to find that folder, you can do a search for "inbox.dbx",
and when the file search finds the file, right click on the file
name and select "Open containing folder" from the right click
context menu. That will get you to the folder a bit easier perhaps.
Just make sure the Owner part of the path is "AlanHolmes" before
deleting things or whatever :-)
Generally, you want to work non-destructively, not deleting
anything until the job is done. As that makes it easier to
backtrack if necessary.
Now, if I look at the steps involved above:
1. Closing the Outlook Express program with the X in the upper
right hand corner, should do the job. You can also look in
Task Manager, for msimn.exe and see if it is no longer running,
under the Process tab.
from the Internet Mail and News era"
2. Use the file search, and search for inbox.dbx.
Perhaps that will help you find the folder with the inbox.dbx a
little easier. Verify the path is correct, as there could be
several user accounts on the same computer, and we only want
to fix the AlanHolmes one.
To create a new folder, you can open the C: drive first. Then,
from the File menu, select New Folder and overtype the name field
with "data" so that you end up with a C:\data folder to work with.
My "Outlook Express" folder has four files in it, but yours could
have more of them. That's what they want you to copy for safe
keeping. Select whatever items are in the folder, then do "copy"
from the menu. Move to the Explorer window showing C:\data and
do "paste" from the menu. That way, you will have copies of the files.
Folders.dbx, Inbox.dbx, Offline.dbx, Outbox.dbx
3. In this step, we are asked to rename inbox.dbx to inbox.dbx.old
This is only going to work easily, if you have file extensions viewable.
If you are in the Explorer (file manager thing), Tools : Folder Options : View
gets you here. And unticking the "Hide extensions for known file types"
box, will make the file extension visible, so you are better able
to verify you have done the edit of the name properly.
http://www.cadinternational.com/cadinternational/images/faq-shots/FQ-0000119-03-windows-folder-options-view-hide-extensions-for-known-file-types.gif
4. Starting OE is pretty easy.
5. When doing File->Import->Messages , I assume you have to click
or be in the new Inbox, for that to work. That is, unless this
importation function is fixed to only work with the Inbox. You
want your old Inbox messages, if they are available, to be copied
into the new empty Inbox first seen in Step 4.
The rest of the steps look OK.
Paul