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moving outlook express email files

B

beverage

Senior member
I recently upgraded my system, and one of my new purchases was a new hard drive. I loaded windows on it, and put it in my computer as the master, and my old hard drive in as slave. When I open outlook express on the new drive (C) it opens for the first time, and has no emails, which is what i expected. When I open outlook express on the old drive (D) it too opens with no email files, even though when it was my main hard drive in the old system, I had many many emails in there. I'd imagne these emails are still on there somewhere, is there any way to recover them and save them so they will open with outlook express on the C drive? I'd hate to loose them all, as they contain some important information.

Thanks for any help you can offer.
 
Well the easiest way is to do a search for *.dbx and note the location of these files. Then Open outlook and got to file...import...messages...from an poutlook express store....put in the location you noted earlier and then select all folders...Outlook should then import all the old messages.
 
Before importing the email files, try to make sure both versions of Outlook Express are the same or very similar.

Also, you might want to keep those emails on your D drive and make it your store folder.
Do it thusly:

Tools->options->Maintenance->Store folder->change to where ever you want


"Then when you reinstall windows, do this again, except point it to the the same place and it'll find it and store messages there. Also, this is a nice feature for me since this will make it store everything from then on in that location so you dont have to worry about losing it in a reformat. "

Ha, just realized when I saved sombody's quote on this from a while back, I carried forward their mispelling, fixed it now.
 
Originally posted by: Slogun
Before importing the email files, try to make sure both versions of Outlook Express are the same or very similar.

Also, you might want to keep those emails on your D drive and make it your store folder.
Do it thusly:

Tools->options->Maintenance->Store folder->change to where ever you want


"Then when you reinstall windows, do this again, except point it to the the same place and it'll find it and store messages there. Also, this is a nice feature for me since this will make it store everything from then on in that location so you dont have to worry about loosing it in a reformat. "
Click to expand...

Agreed, my favourite method 😀

 
strange, it found no .dbx files on either hard drive. Which seems confusing, MAYBE it's gone from the old one, but shouldn't there already be a new one for outlook on the new hard drive? I have already recieved about 10 emails and they're obviously saved somewhere...
 
Well, that's strange that you don't see any .dbx files.

I see in your rig you have machines running win98 and winxp, let me know which machine you are talking about and I will tell you where to look because each of those operating systems keep those files in separate places.
 
you are all wrong hehe

i have the correct answer 😉

you must first "compact" the OE folders (i have found this on XP anyway, i dont remember ever having to do this before XP)

anyhow, boot from your old drive, open OE, File -> Folder -> Compact
pick the ones you want
it will create .dbx files
search for them
copy them to the new drive in the same directory they were in (here's where its hard on diff. OSs, winXP puts them in a long giant file name relating to your user name, where 98 just put them in \program files\oe

when you open OE from your old drive, you are still booted to your new drive, so OE still thinks to look in *c*:\whatever, but now that is the same stuff as when you open OE on your new drive - so you must boot to the old drive, compact, then it should work

understand?

specific questions can be answered @ daviddoria@comcast.net

hope this helps!

david
 
We are "all wrong?"

Rather pretentious of you, don't you think?

I run WinXP and have never compacted any files.
I have not had any trouble managing my OE files. I have been able to move/save "sent" and "deleted" OE files accross operating systems and through twice yearly reformats/reinstalls.
Perhaps, as is often the case, there is more than one way to do things. :|

WinXP, by default, puts them here:
C:\Documents and Settings\(user)\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{DC9B9B81-E089-4ED1-A11E-A4A1E8B66F3A}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

Win98 puts them here:
C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Identities\{504D82A0-74E8-11D6-8028-9E4CC752D76D}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

I, on the other hand, store mine here:
D:\Tim's Stuff\outlook xpress store folder

I noticed that on my wifes Win98SE machine , a search for .dbx files came up empty, go figure(perhaps we "are all wrong").

BTW, good luck trying to boot to an old "C" drive presently mounted on "D".
 
WOW, finally....and I didn't even have to boot from the D: drive.

After using sloguns paths as a guide i easily found all the dbx files from the old master, and the new master, I just saved my current emails (only a few), and replaced the new dbx files with the old ones, then added the few saved emails back to the inbox.

I have a feeling I couldn't see the .dbx files when i searched because of Microsoft's attempt to keep you from screwing things up, I hadn't yet turned on "view hidden files and folders" which I had to do when following the path to the location...

Thanks for the help!!
 
Originally posted by: Slogun
Glad to help, that's what we (most of us) are here for.
Click to expand...

no offense, but crazy's way was a lot easier and his post was more helpful. did you notice the smiley face in his post? and how he said "hope this helps!"

he wasnt being mean you moron. you are just numb.
 
Originally posted by: MrDudeMan
Originally posted by: Slogun
Glad to help, that's what we (most of us) are here for.
Click to expand...

no offense, but crazy's way was a lot easier and his post was more helpful. did you notice the smiley face in his post? and how he said "hope this helps!"

he wasnt being mean you moron. you are just numb.
Click to expand...

"After using sloguns paths as a guide i easily found all the dbx files from the old master, and the new master, I just saved my current emails (only a few), and replaced the new dbx files with the old ones, then added the few saved emails back to the inbox."

Beverage's post answered the question most definitively as to which method was easiest.

MrDudeMan, you can butt out. It would be obvious to anyone watching that you and crazy are the ones creating a negative tone here.

Beverage asked the question, I answered it to his satisfaction. End of story. Join T agreed as well. The rest is spurious fluff.

Dude, I believe I shall send a snippet of your behavior to the moderator.



 
MrDudeMan's opinion might be worth something here if he were merely an impartial observer, however...

I see that MrDudeMan and Crazychicken are both from Brentwwod Tennessee. They have been posting frequently in each other's threads and obviously know each other well, if they are not, in fact the same person(They joined the same month and have almost the same number of posts).

MrDudeMan has made a lot of money selling used items at AT.

If he wants to keep using the forum he ought to mind his business and clean up his act.

His misbehavior already earned him a Moderator's ban this summer, as evidenced here.
 
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