Steve--
Thanks much for your response. It seems you've updated and added some
applications on your site which is one of the first ones I go to when I need
OE/Win Mail help or am trying to help someone else with a problem.
The problem with following the clear directions in your backup first section
with the regedits is that I don't think I can find the .wab from the Vista
boot. You can bet I'm going to try searching every way possible with Vista
and Google desktop.
***What file spells the "OE store? that I should have moved originally
according to many people?" Also I don't know why trying to untick the read
only attribute is supposed to help but doesn't help me. I don't know why I
can't run the Import Wizard from Vista--but possibly because XP is shot from
Vista now unless I do an XP repair install which destroys the Vista MBR and
BCD and then I have to make the choice of either fixing one or the other.
When the HD was working without the "failing" messages, I could have done a
repair install of the XP boot without impacting Vista. Now for whichever
reasons, that's not the case.
For some reason my search isn't working *to find things on my XP boot as
well as it usually does, possibly because of the corrupt HD. I have
recovered my Vista boots, but if I want to go to my XP boot where OE is
again, I have to do a repair install and I lose the ability to go to Vista
because I think the Repair Install of XP is overwriting the MBR and BCD of
my two Vista boots (it was a working triple boot). I can't tell you the
reason for this, but I also can't tell you why the bootrec.exe commands now
have my HD working and the two Vista boots for two weeks after my HD failed
and wouldn't let me boot to anywhere until I ran the bootrec.exe commands.
Startup Repair failed every time I ran it, telling me correctly the HD is in
bad shape.
Whatever the reason the HD is working now is on a microscopic level, and
could be because of a whole array of reasons--recovered magnitism
temporarily, and a number of others.
If you google for exporting .dbx OE mail from XP to Vista, you get the same
consistent caveat on a million hits which seems to have two requirements
carved in stone:
1) Copying the master file "folders .dbx" or sometimes it's said to copy the
store folder--I don't think I did that.
2) Clear the Read only attribute. But there is more than one user profile
in the new and appropriately satarized by the Apple commercials with the Jon
Stewart commedian UAC and I have cleared the read-only attribute for every
profile but it doesn't help--probably because I didn't fulfill moving the
mail store.
Also see:
Importing Outlook Express DBX files into Windows Vista
http://blogs.technet.com/james/archi...ows-vista.aspx
How to repair your outlook express mailbox files
http://www.nu2.nu/howto/outlookexpress/
You can throw up Win Mail in Vista and get a wizard going by clicking on
File>Import>OE from XP (the folder that all the .dbxs 1+GB sit in, and up
pops the message):
"No messages can be found in this folder or another application is running
that has the required files open (not at all in fact true since I'm doing
this on a Vista boot and not on an XP boot where OE is)--Please try
selecting another folder or closing any open folders." That's a worthless
Redmond message that does not apply here.
but File>Import>OE from XP does not allow me as I said.
From Jim Pickering a long time OE MVP and helper:
"If you copied the DBX files to your hard drive, then cleared the Read-Only
attribute from*ALL* of the DBX files, and included the master file,
"folders.dbx" the import will work using the RTM version."
From Jim Pickering, MVP/Windows Mail applications
The problem is compounded because my HD is failing. The situation is that I
can run my two Vista boots fine (recovered by the 3 bootrec.exe command
switches using the command prompt from the Recovery link on the DVD) but if
I want to go back to XP I have to do a repair install and it is overwriting
my Vista MBRs and destroying the Vista BCDs every time I do it, and I am not
seeing the 3 posssible boots on the screen--it's either fix XP and boot to
it and the vista boots are destroyed (but can be recovered as long as the HD
holds up--14 days now or fix the Vista boots with the bootrec.exe 3 switches
and lose XP) and I don't want to push my luck.
I've backed up manually, by Acronis, and via Vista to the external HD and
DVD successfully everything but I wanted the added "security" of doing this
manually.
The only thing I can't get to open up are these .dbxs on the external HD.
It is true that they may be Okay in the many backups I've done, but the
halls of google are full of failed Acronis and Vista backup recovery
chronicles so I just don't know.
Plus there is the feeling that this is definitely fixable *if I knew what I
was doing to fix it.
Thanks very much for your response. I'm also trying to locate the advise
you gave me a few months ago on the thread where an early version of Live
Mail took over my Win Mail and OE file associations both without telling me.
Some regedits you gave me fixed that--I know they aren't the same situation
but I'd like to find the message anyway and can't.
Sorry for the long response.
CH
" mac" <macknever@fsmail.net> wrote in message
news:BBCFFE40-2A57-42BC-848E-9D9A456A8633@microsoft.com...
>
> "Chad Harris" <vistaneedsmuchowork.net> wrote in message
> news:%23Rjh8bKMIHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>> I'm backing up manually after backing up several times via Acronis and
>> Vista's backup to my external HD and to DVD.
>>
>> I have a failing HD, confirmed with a Dell ctrl+alt+d Code 4 at firmware
>> screen, and it's HD failure message at boot, and Event Biewer, and I was
>> able to recover both Vista boots using the bootrec.exe 3 commands from
>> the cmd prompt. I'm manually backing things up now on my borrowed time,
>> with two new HDs and a Raid Controller ready to roll. Vista works great,
>> but LOL for how long?
>>
>> I have saved my XP OE mail onto my external HD (that is important to me)
>> but it won't open because it's .dbx.
>>
>> I had a similar problem to this a few months ago, when Live Mail
>> reconfigured my .emls on Vista to .dbx somehow and Steve Cochran showed
>> me how to get out of that jam so they all opened as .emls (i.e. fine in
>> Vista again). But I don't know how similar this problem is.
>>
>> I've saved my OE mail onto my external HD fine, but it's all .dbx having
>> coming from OE and it won't open on Vista. I right clicked the folder
>> and told it to "Open With" Win Mail but that doesn't help. All that does
>> is when I left click each message, they simply open up my Win Mail inbox
>> with my Win Mail messages on Vista. That of course doesn't relate to my
>> .dbxs all saved from XP.
>>
>> There has to be a way to open these .dbxs and maybe it's similar to the
>> way Steve helped with before.
>>
>> Any ideas out of this jam for these emails are much appreciated.
>>
>> TIA,
>>
>> CH
>
> See the section titled 'Importing from Outlook Express'.
> http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx
>
> --
> Regards Steve.
> MS-MVP. OE. [DTS] UK