XP Crash During Folder Compact, DBX's hosed...

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From: Jim Phillips (japhilps_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/17/04 

Date: 17 Nov 2004 09:01:20 -0800

I maintain a fairly elaborate folder structure in OE. A week or so
ago, I performed a "cleanup" by deleting many useless emails and
restructuring the folders significantly. Then I performed a "Compact
All Folders" operation.

During the Compact operation, my Windows XP machine crashed. That is,
the screen went black and the system rebooted itself. After reboot,
the "System Has Recovered from a Serious Error" message was displayed.

Upon starting OE after the reboot, my Folders.dbx had been corrupted,
as the folder structure was gone. Strangely, email approx. 5 months
old and older still existed in some folders, others most were
completely empty (59Kb dbx's). Other OE Identities and their assoc.
message stores were not affected...

You could call me a "power user" of OE, having used it for years
without *major* incident. I've also implemented best practices (like
turning off backg compaction & compacting Offline) on behalf of
clients. I've also successfully used DBExtract to recover email from
"misplaced" or deleted stores...

Unfortunately, my lost emails appear to be gone for good. I searched
the hard drive for stray dbx's or dbt's but found none. It's almost
like the lost data existed only in memory at the time of the crash. I
had a recent backup of my email, so only 2 wks worth was lost. Be nice
to get them back though...

I wonder if I had immediately performed a "system restore" if that
might have restored my OE message store... Also, what's the
possibility that there are temp db*'s that DBXpress might be able to
recover from some "scratch" area used during the OE folder compaction?

I'd also offer this advice, although it may seem odd. I suggest that
one should backup his OE store prior to compaction, especially if
significant folder restructuring has taken place. Then, with a copy
safely tucked away, compact the folders and backup again to realize
the reduction in Store size. Compaction does seem to be a common theme
among those reporting lost email or OE crashes...

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Inbox Emptied - 4th time
    ... likely a combination of background compaction being enabled and McAfee. ... > message store folder didn't have any additional inboxes ... Because of this tendency of attachments to infect, ... Turn off email scanning in your antivirus software. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress)
  • Re: delete key slow to delete in OE only
    ... switching from folder to folder. ... Make sure you have background compaction disabled. ... Because of this tendency of attachments to infect, ... Turn off email scanning in your antivirus software. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress)
  • Re: Outlook Express folders do not match .dbx files in Store folder
    ... Certainly does (reduce the size of the inbox dbx file, after compaction -- ... If the folder was that large, you should move the message to new folders. ... Doing a compaction will change the dbx file date to the compaction date. ... Store folder, but if I open the store folder in Windows Explorer it is ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress)
  • Re: No response when selecting MY COMPUTER
    ... In Outlook Express empty your Deleted Items folder. ... Manual compaction gives you more ... Volume fragmentation ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: XP Crash During Folder Compact, DBXs hosed...
    ... >I maintain a fairly elaborate folder structure in OE. ... my lost emails appear to be gone for good. ... > might have restored my OE message store... ... > recover from some "scratch" area used during the OE folder compaction? ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress)