HELP ME!! I lost all my mails! :'(

[ancio80]

Hello guys (and gals). I am so deep in trouble I can't even begin to
tell you. In a nutshell, somehow, a folder I had FULL of other folders
even fuller of TONS of saved e-mails (Outlook e-mail) has completely
disappeared from my computer. I did NOT delete it, it was the last
folder I opened yesterday before I left work, then I locked my
computer (as opposed to shut it down or logging off) and this morning,
POOF! Gone. I did the following:

-Made all hidden stuff viewable and did a search in the WHOLE
computer.
-Did a system restore back to last Friday.
-Ran an UNDELETE program.

I got all my folders back, but NONE OF THE OUTLOOK E-MAIL FILES ARE
THERE!!!

I have also noticed that my folders pane in Outlook has changed and
acts funny (ie: I click on CONTACTS and it brings CALENDAR up, and so
on), but I don't know that this is related to the above problem...

I don't much care for how Outlook looks now, but I care every bit
about getting those e-mails back. Could someone tell me why a folder
would disappear just like that? (No one else has access to my
computer). Also, ARE those e-mails gone? If not, how can I get them
back?

You will have my eternal unending gratitude (and tons of houses and
luxury cars if I become rich and famous one day!)

Thanks...Jus.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You are not providing any information for us to work with.
Version of Outlook?
Type of mail account?

 

[ancio80]

Hello, Robert. You'll have to forgive me, in my panic, I forgot even
my name. I'm not sure what you mean by "type of e-mail account," but
it's just plain Outlook, at work (we don't have any pop3 mail thru
Outlook or anything like that). The version of Outlook is 2003. I'm
on Windows XP Pro, the computer's a Dell. Let me know if you need
anything else...thanks again!

~Jus.

 

[Pat Willener]

You write that you "don't have any pop3 mail"; this means that you
either use IMAP or Exchange Server. If this is indeed the case, that's
good news for you! This means that your mail has not disappeared from
your computer, but form the Exchange or IMAP server. Ask your mail admin
what happened to your messages.

If you are not sure, check your email account type: Tools | E-mail
Accounts | View or change existing e-mail accounts; next you should see
your account, and if you click 'Change' you will see the details.

 

[ancio80]

Hi, Pat-

Thanks for your answer. I wrote that we don' t have any pop3 or
anything like that, meaning to say that we have *just* Outlook, we
don't get our e-mail thru a third party thru Outlook...(if that's
confusing, imagine MY head LOL). In other words, our e-mail at the
office is not something like "(e-mail address removed)" but
"(e-mail address removed)," where COMPANY is the name of the comany where I
work, of course

My admin has already checked into this and has no clue where my saved
e-mails have gone (they were NOT in personal folders in Outlook, I
save them by dragging them into a new folder onto my desktop).

If you think that I still have a chance, because I'm totally missing
the point somewhere, pleeeeeeeeeeeease tell me what it is that I'm
missing < My heart kind of skipped a beat when I saw you say "Good
news!" so if you really think they are good news, show me the way
because I can't make heads or tails off of this :\

Thanks again...

~Jus.

 

[Pat Willener]

So you don't keep your mail inside Outlook (usually a Personal Folders
file, or .PST file), but you move your mail outside into a desktop
folder - do I understand this correctly so far?

And now, either that desktop folder has disappeared, or the messages in
that folder have disappeared?

Do you know how these messages were saved - as .MSG files? (I have just
dragged a message from OL to my desktop, and it is saved as a .MSG file).

So, as things on computers usually do not just "disappear", they must be
somewhere. Try using Windows Search (from the Start button), and look
for *.msg files. There is a chance that you may just find all of them.

If all my assumptions above are incorrect, please clarify.

 

[ancio80]

Hello again, Pat-

Exactly

Correct again.

Actually, if I go into PROPERTIES for any Outlook message, it says,
under "type of file," "OUTLOOK ITEM".

I tried searching for *.msg files, as you suggested, but nothing came
up

I am slowly losing hope. My boss (who already got word that all his
files are lost) wasn't too happy. He also said that he doesn't believe
in "computer gremlins," which doesn't make ME happy because it means
he thinks it was my fault. There ARE computer glitches, you know.
Yeesh. Anyhow, if you still have something up your sleeve I'll be very
happy to hear about it < Thanks for your patience!

~Jus.

 

[Pat Willener]

One last suggestion: open Control Panel or Windows Explorer, click Tools
| Folder Options | tab View, and make sure that 'Show hidden files and
folders' is set. Search again.

For the future, if you have any important data on your computer, have a
full backup taken once in a while.

 

[ancio80]

Hi, Pat-

I already had the 'Show hidden files and folders' checked (due to
the nature of my work, I have to keep it that way). And that *was* my
backup! LOL I was trying to get to it because the original was lost. :
(