Recover Lost WIndows Mail Folders and Emails

Hello. Please bear with me. I'm a newbee to this. This problem is very
similar to RichMc461's problem of April 07. New Years Eve day my HP Pavilion
Slimline s7700n running Vista Home Premium decided to stop working. I ended
up having to reload Vista and spent the day re-installing software. When I
went to restore my data files ... Vista told me there were none to restore
.... but my separate backup drive still showed as being half full. I finally
bypassed the Vista messages and told it to restore everything on the drive.
It pretty well did it. I had a complete backup as of November 4, 2007 plus a
bunch of weekly ones. I was able to recover everything EXCEPT my emails and
my Windows Contacts. Eventually I even found the WIndows Contacts file and
restored them ... but it seems my several years worth of SENT emails are
nowhere to be found ... at least not in a recognizable form by me. I have
found several MAILBOX.pst files of various sizes - one of which (32MB) could
be my lost emails. My problem is ... I thought PST files were only from
Outlook -which I never used. I bought this machine in February 2007 and had
converted all my Outlook Express MBX files off my old XP-machine back then.
I've never cared for Outlook, so when I started up with the Vista I opted to
use Windows Mail. WHen I restored all my data I put it in a separate folder
and told the restore process to retain the folder and file names (within that
separate folder). From there I moved my data files to the newly created and
very much empty folders from all the software installed I re-did.

I tried to import the Mailbox.pst into Windows Mail but the only option it
would find any files was Windows Mail V7. If I select Outlook or Outlook
Express it lets me drill down to the folder where the Mailbox files are but
shows nothing and says there aren't any folders to import. When I use Windows
Mail it made me select Outlook as the receiver and said it imported some
messages. I started Outlook ... nothing there.

Are these Mailbox.pst files what I am looking for ... or just something left
over from my file transfers back in February?

--
Mike Arnold - Thanks for your help!

"Mike Arnold" <MikeArnold@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:625A921B-EFEC-47FD-BB3A-52D33A5920A8@microsoft.com...
> Hello. Please bear with me. I'm a newbee to this. This problem is very
> similar to RichMc461's problem of April 07. New Years Eve day my HP
> Pavilion
> Slimline s7700n running Vista Home Premium decided to stop working. I
> ended
> up having to reload Vista and spent the day re-installing software. When I
> went to restore my data files ... Vista told me there were none to restore
> ... but my separate backup drive still showed as being half full. I
> finally
> bypassed the Vista messages and told it to restore everything on the
> drive.
> It pretty well did it. I had a complete backup as of November 4, 2007 plus
> a
> bunch of weekly ones. I was able to recover everything EXCEPT my emails
> and
> my Windows Contacts. Eventually I even found the WIndows Contacts file and
> restored them ... but it seems my several years worth of SENT emails are
> nowhere to be found ... at least not in a recognizable form by me. I have
> found several MAILBOX.pst files of various sizes - one of which (32MB)
> could
> be my lost emails. My problem is ... I thought PST files were only from
> Outlook -which I never used. I bought this machine in February 2007 and
> had
> converted all my Outlook Express MBX files off my old XP-machine back
> then.
> I've never cared for Outlook, so when I started up with the Vista I opted
> to
> use Windows Mail. WHen I restored all my data I put it in a separate
> folder
> and told the restore process to retain the folder and file names (within
> that
> separate folder). From there I moved my data files to the newly created
> and
> very much empty folders from all the software installed I re-did.
>
> I tried to import the Mailbox.pst into Windows Mail but the only option it
> would find any files was Windows Mail V7. If I select Outlook or Outlook
> Express it lets me drill down to the folder where the Mailbox files are
> but
> shows nothing and says there aren't any folders to import. When I use
> Windows
> Mail it made me select Outlook as the receiver and said it imported some
> messages. I started Outlook ... nothing there.
>
> Are these Mailbox.pst files what I am looking for ... or just something
> left
> over from my file transfers back in February?
>
> --
> Mike Arnold - Thanks for your help!

Windows Mail stores its mail in .eml files, one file for each message, plus
some more information about the messages gathered into one more file
(sorry, I don't remember its name). I think there's also a file for each
folder. All these files are, by default, hidden - meaning that you need
to enable searching for hidden and system files when looking for them.

The Mailbox.pst files are probably left over from when you had Outlook
installed on one of the computers - possibly a trial version.

"Mike Arnold" <MikeArnold@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:625A921B-EFEC-47FD-BB3A-52D33A5920A8@microsoft.com...
> Hello. Please bear with me. I'm a newbee to this. This problem is very
> similar to RichMc461's problem of April 07. New Years Eve day my HP
> Pavilion
> Slimline s7700n running Vista Home Premium decided to stop working. I
> ended
> up having to reload Vista and spent the day re-installing software. When I
> went to restore my data files ... Vista told me there were none to restore
> ... but my separate backup drive still showed as being half full. I
> finally
> bypassed the Vista messages and told it to restore everything on the
> drive.
> It pretty well did it. I had a complete backup as of November 4, 2007 plus
> a
> bunch of weekly ones. I was able to recover everything EXCEPT my emails
> and
> my Windows Contacts. Eventually I even found the WIndows Contacts file and
> restored them ... but it seems my several years worth of SENT emails are
> nowhere to be found ... at least not in a recognizable form by me. I have
> found several MAILBOX.pst files of various sizes - one of which (32MB)
> could
> be my lost emails. My problem is ... I thought PST files were only from
> Outlook -which I never used. I bought this machine in February 2007 and
> had
> converted all my Outlook Express MBX files off my old XP-machine back
> then.
> I've never cared for Outlook, so when I started up with the Vista I opted
> to
> use Windows Mail. WHen I restored all my data I put it in a separate
> folder
> and told the restore process to retain the folder and file names (within
> that
> separate folder). From there I moved my data files to the newly created
> and
> very much empty folders from all the software installed I re-did.
>
> I tried to import the Mailbox.pst into Windows Mail but the only option it
> would find any files was Windows Mail V7. If I select Outlook or Outlook
> Express it lets me drill down to the folder where the Mailbox files are
> but
> shows nothing and says there aren't any folders to import. When I use
> Windows
> Mail it made me select Outlook as the receiver and said it imported some
> messages. I started Outlook ... nothing there.
>
> Are these Mailbox.pst files what I am looking for ... or just something
> left
> over from my file transfers back in February?


To import messages from a PST file Outlook will have to be installed and set
to use that PST file before WinMail can import from it.

--
Frank Saunders MS-MVP IE,OE/WM
www.fjsmjs.com
Do not reply with email