Outlook screw-up

[Godgrave]

So this morning by boss's Outlook wouldn't open and kept crashing, so he asked our accountant (unfortunately my room-mate as well) what he could do to help out in any way. The dude sat there for 2 hours figiting stuff and didn't have a clue ... anyway, I sorta thought of a backup and downloaded Thunderbird remembering that there's that option where it asks you to import data (emails including sub-folders and contact book and every freaking thing EXCEPT the Calendar cos Tbird doesn't have a Cal) from Outlook/Outlook Express/something else I don't remember. So anyway, it worked! Half-way through though, it 'seemed' to have been stuck cos my boss had emails from 2001 and apparently he gets over a 100 emails per day, so the numbers are high as hell. I asked them if I could do it again or just let it run more ... but they didn't listen.

So anyway, my roomie cancelled that because he said he'd get the Micro Office cd and just re-install it over again. Problem, he didn't take a backup of the folders on the current Outlook. He 'thought' it'd be saved on the hard-drive which also he confessed later that he had no clue where it was. He un-installed Office and re-installed it twice, Outlook fails to open. Late in the evening, I re-ran my Thunderbird setup and it DIDN'T give me the option for Importing, instead opened up with half of his folders from the previous import!

Good.

Bad part, is there a way the files get auto-archived or something ... can I retrieve his folders and stuff, after the original was un-installed and such, in the sense is it on the hard-drive somewhere? If it is, guide me what I should do ... I'm a computer newbie and I'm gonna go to work over the weekend just to try and fix it, even though it isn't my fault or my fracking job!

P.S. I may sound really stupid and monotonous ... gomen ^_^:

[gokuDX7]

When you uninstall Outlook it never removes your e-mails (unless you ask it too). They should all be located in the C:\Documents and Settings\HP_Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{D190EE07-1887-4595-8F62-6253314288D2}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

The HP_Administrator will be whatever your bosses login name is. So if he just uses administrator then replace the HP_admin~ with Administrator.

Also the crazy letters and numbers {D190EE07-1887-459... will be diffrent on your computer also. So your best bet in finding his outlook folder is to just manly navigate to it.

Open explorer go to c:\Documents and Settings\ click on the folder with his username. Go through these folders.. Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\ then click on one of the folders with weird numbers (theirs probably allot since you guys installed outlook a few times) but you can make sure what one is the real one by viewing the folder's file size. You said he had allot of e-mails marked back in 2001 so this means his folder is probably going to be huge. Probably in the gig range. So check all folders and find the one with the biggest number. Inside you will see .dbx files. These (I think) can be imported into firebird. If not then just install outlook again and move these files into the new outlook folder and you should see all the e-mail show up in the program next time you load it.


Hope this helps.

[Godgrave]

Ray of hope! Thanks goku, I'll try this out.

Guys, please feel free to give other ways too, if anything comes to mind, just in case ya know, backup plan.

[gokuDX7]

NP, you could also suggest to your boss that he uses Gmail. He may find that more enjoyable XD.

[Sledgstone]

Backup all those identities folders before you move them around, just incase you over-write something by accident because some of those dbx files could all have the same file name.

I would do what gokudx7 said, I've done it before except when you locate the dbx files with your bosses emails on them, copy them all to whatever folder your outlook express is currently using (over-writing some like inbox if it has to) and restart outlook express. Everything should open up like normal with all his emails next time he opens the program.

Alternate:
Heres some links to programs that restore outlook express dbx files. As long as those dbx files are on the computer you could use these to restore them (these could be useful if things are really bad like corrupted files.) This might be the faster route if you can't distinguish what dbx files are what.

http://www.mailnavigator.com/restore_outlook_express_dbx_files.html

http://www.newfreedownloads.com/find/dbx-files.html

I've never used these programs before so I don't know how effective they are.

[Godgrave]

YOSH!

I'm going to the office tomorrow even though it's a Sunday, oh well, some of the disadvantages of being single I guess >_> ... so anyway, I'm gonna try these options out and keep you guys posted. Chris, I may call you if the situation's dire ...

[Godgrave]

Gomen, double post.

I'm in the office right now, checked for .dbx files - there isn't a single file on his computer that's a .dbx! <IMG class=inlineimg title=">_

Further, I managed to find that hugeass numbered folder but under the 2-3 identities, the folder's blank.

What I could find were some .pst files next to some Outlook icons and some titled 'backup', but they were last modified in 2005!

Is there anything else I can do/check for? :( .... and I'm hungry, the streets of NYC look deserted as hell plus on my way here I couldn't see a single shop open, then again it's just 8:40am.

EDIT: I managed to find a file named 'outlook' under 'C:/Email Backup', it's a .pst file the size of 1.99GB. I opened the new installed Outlook right now and some 30-40 reminders came up on the screen and it gave an error message that the file cannot be accessed or uploaded from. I've just opened TBird, went into the Import option on the menu bar, it only asked where to import from - chose Outlook and what to import - chose Mails. It's started importing something, though I didn't get the chance to choose or select a file to import.

[Sledgstone]

.pst is what Outlook uses. Outlook Express uses .dbx. If he used outlook express and there are no dbx files.. maybe some recent upgrade copied over his stuff to outlook? Either that or all the multiple install/uninstalls deleted his dbx files? *shrugs* I don't know anything about outlook. Maybe he should load a complete backup of his system to restore his email. If he has one that is, I don't know many people that actually routinely make backups of the computers.

[gokuDX7]

sounds like your friend managed to wipe his e-mails. He must have clicked ok to completely remove outlook and all of its files when he was uninstalling :(

Just wondering but did you do a search for *.dbx using windows search?

You have pst files so he must be running MS outlook. You can try this tool to read the pst files and do what you want with the contents. http://www.mailnavigator.com/reading_ms_outlook_pst_files.html