Moving email from inbox to archived folders -> lost email

[bossfo]

I was moving mail from my inbox to archived folders and the transfer
seemed to go fine, but for some reason I now have lost everything that
was in the folder.

there is nothing in the inbox or archived folders and I need to know
how to go about finding them and restoring them if possible.

i was attempting to decrease the size of my inbox when this happened.

any help will be greatly appreciated

jb

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Hello bossfo,

What version of Outlook are you using? What method did you use to move the
messages? If you do a Windows Search (Start | Find/Search...) and find all
files with *.pst filenames (make sure and include Hidden and System folders)
how large are the PST files it finds?

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenote.html

 

[bossfo]

i use outlook 2003

and i was manually moving them from my inbox to archived folders, to
save space.

i saw the folder icons moving from left to right, but the time
remaining kept changing so that might be a problem.

then when i to check to see if complete, outlook was not responding. i
did a contrl alt delete to shut down via tast manager. and when I
logged on again, the folder was not there?

any ideas?

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Hello bossfo,

See if this helps: http://www.slipstick.com/problems/scanpst.htm. Check
each of the PST files you have. Generally killing the task before it completes
is dangerous to the data files.

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenote.html

 

[bossfo]

going to run scanpst.exe a few times, as the site you mentioned said to
try this.

bottom line, if this does not work, am I just SOL?

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha bossfo,

Well...probably unless you have a backup of your PST file somewhere.

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenote.html

 

[bossfo]

I was able to find "archive.bak" and "outlook.bak"

any idea if these can help???

Mahalo

 

[Brian Tillman]

I was able to find "archive.bak" and "outlook.bak"

any idea if these can help???

You would be the best person to answer that since nothing will make a backup
of Outlook's files automatically. If there are backups, and these are they,
you will have made them and should remember making them along with which
program you used to make them.

 

[bossfo]

to be totally honest, i may have created them, but not sure how?

but i think the folders are still there, as i was shutting down outlook
and got a message saying that "personal folders" was not closed
properly

and personal folders is what I lost?

 

[Brian Tillman]

to be totally honest, i may have created them, but not sure how?

but i think the folders are still there, as i was shutting down
outlook and got a message saying that "personal folders" was not
closed properly

and personal folders is what I lost?

Open the Control Panel's Mail applet and see what personal folders you have
defined in your mail profile.