trying to gain access to emails on old hard disk

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From: wilfred (wilfqb_at_optusnet.com.au)
Date: 07/12/04 

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 04:30:31 -0700

I have been using Outlook Express 6 as my email program
for several years.
During 2003 my PC was infected by the Bugbear virus, and
although my McAfee Antivirus Software claimed that had
been able to repair the damage, I still experienced some
problems with my PC, but several months ago something
(mysterious) happened so that I was no longer able to boot
the PC at all.

As a result of these problems I decided to "start all
over" but because I had documents, emails, etcetera on my
hard disk which I wanted to retain, I followed a
suggestion that I install a new hard disk, and reload my
software. This has been successful, and I have been able
to send and receive emails.

My problem is that I have not been able to gain access to
my old emails which are still on the old hard disk which
is now installed as the second hard disk, now known as
drive D: - the new hard disk is installed as drive C:

I have been able to identify the file structure used by
Outlook Express 6 to hold the email messages, by selecting
Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder. Knowing the
name of these email files on drive C: I then used Explorer
to find the corresponding files for my old emails on my
old D: drive, and according to Explorer there are .DBX
files which correspond to the various folders which were
part of my Local Folders in Outlook Express 6.

I selected Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder
and was presented with a message:
"Your personal message store is located in the following
folder"

When I clicked the Change button, I was able to use the
Browse function to specify the path name of the files on
my old D: drive. When I clicked the "OK" button, I was
presented with a message:
"There appears to be an Outlook Express message store
already in the folder that you have chosen. Do you want
to switch to using that store? If not, it will be deleted
and replaced with your current store"

When I clicked the "Yes" button, I was presented with a
message:
"Your store location will not be changed until you
shutdown and restart Outlook Express.

I clicked the "OK" button, and shut down Outlook Express,
and restarted it, and was shown the list of folders that I
expected to see under the "Local Folders" heading. The
problem is that when I select any of these folders,
instead of seeing the details of all of the emails which
should be there, I just get the message:
"There are no items in this view"

If I use wordpad to look at the contents of the .DBX files
which Explorer tells me are on the old drive D:, I can see
enough indications that the data is there, even though
the .DBX format is for the most part not a text file.

I have performed the following test to satisfy myself that
I have been correctly following the above process for
changing the identity of the store folder. First of all I
saved all current emails which I want to keep, but I left
a few inconsequential emails in my C: drive folder. I
changed to the D: drive folder as described above, and
subsequently changed back to the C: drive folder, and was
able to get back to those "inconsequential emails" without
a problem.

I realise that I have written at length to describe
exactly what I have done.
Please, HOW CAN I GET MY EMAILS BACK?

Wilfred
wilfqb@optusnet.com.au

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