Warning: DBXpress recovery program

There have been a lot of threads regarding the flaw in OE6 that causes entire
folders to be lost if you interrupt the compacting process. Unfortunately,
OE6 gives you the option to "Cancel" the compacting process at any time
without warning you that anything will occur as a result of your doing so.
This is a serious design flaw that has not been remedied by Microsoft.

However, I know almost a dozen persons who have tried the recovery program
DBXpress with no measurable success. I note that it is recommended by most
techs in this newsgroup on a regular basis including by the person who
designed the program. But this program is equally flawed. The chances are
very good that you will not "extract from file," which is the only option
that will allow you to filter or specify what folders you want to recover
from.

If you are forced to "extract from drive," you must have a 2nd hard drive
available to avoid corruption and over-writing and you will be unable to
specify the folders you want. This means you will get every message you
already have as well as deleted messages with little chance at that point of
recovering any of your lost messages. This can be an organizational nightmare
and none of this is openly disclosed before you purchase the program.

You should take these things into serious consideration before purchasing
DBXpress.

Jason

If you are otherwise fully patched at Windows Updates, then download this
patch and you won't have to worry about losing messages.

Patch KB918766:
http://tinyurl.com/mx3r2

This patch addresses some of the issues that were caused by KB911567.

Address Book problems.
Unsent templates appearing as sent.
Manually compacting will now reset the registry counter to Zero in WinXP/SP2
and also sends a copy of your dbx files to the recycle bin as a temporary
backup.

To complete the fix for .eml templates, a registry change is needed. See:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918766

Tom Koch also has this information at his site, along with a downloadable
Zip file to do the registry change for you. See:
http://www.insideoe.com/#kb918651
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

"jason" wrote in message
...
There have been a lot of threads regarding the flaw in OE6 that causes
entire
folders to be lost if you interrupt the compacting process. Unfortunately,
OE6 gives you the option to "Cancel" the compacting process at any time
without warning you that anything will occur as a result of your doing so.
This is a serious design flaw that has not been remedied by Microsoft.

However, I know almost a dozen persons who have tried the recovery program
DBXpress with no measurable success. I note that it is recommended by most
techs in this newsgroup on a regular basis including by the person who
designed the program. But this program is equally flawed. The chances are
very good that you will not "extract from file," which is the only option
that will allow you to filter or specify what folders you want to recover
from.

If you are forced to "extract from drive," you must have a 2nd hard drive
available to avoid corruption and over-writing and you will be unable to
specify the folders you want. This means you will get every message you
already have as well as deleted messages with little chance at that point
of
recovering any of your lost messages. This can be an organizational
nightmare
and none of this is openly disclosed before you purchase the program.

You should take these things into serious consideration before purchasing
DBXpress.

Jason

"jason" wrote in message
...
There have been a lot of threads regarding the flaw in OE6 that causes
entire
folders to be lost if you interrupt the compacting process. Unfortunately,
OE6 gives you the option to "Cancel" the compacting process at any time
without warning you that anything will occur as a result of your doing so.
This is a serious design flaw that has not been remedied by Microsoft.

However, I know almost a dozen persons who have tried the recovery program
DBXpress with no measurable success. I note that it is recommended by most
techs in this newsgroup on a regular basis including by the person who
designed the program. But this program is equally flawed. The chances are
very good that you will not "extract from file," which is the only option
that will allow you to filter or specify what folders you want to recover
from.


I didn't just "design" the program. I also wrote it and tested it.

It will let you extract from files, if there are messages in the files, but
there were no messages in your files.


If you are forced to "extract from drive," you must have a 2nd hard drive
available to avoid corruption and over-writing and you will be unable to
specify the folders you want. This means you will get every message you
already have as well as deleted messages with little chance at that point
of
recovering any of your lost messages. This can be an organizational
nightmare
and none of this is openly disclosed before you purchase the program.


This is ridiculous. You complained in email and now you are complaining in
the public newsgroups under a false alias. You hammer my program due to
your ignorance and you don't even have the decency to use your real name or
email address.

Tell me something. You have lost your messages from the inbox. Maybe the
disk clusters still hold some of those messages. So how is the program
supposed to know what folders those messages relate to? HUNH? That just
shows how little you understand.


You should take these things into serious consideration before purchasing
DBXpress.

Jason

And anyone who reads this should take into consideration that whoever posted
it is computer illiterate and attacking my program anonymously.

I spent days emailing you and helping you trying to recover your messages
that YOU lost and blame Microsoft for. Most people thank me, even though
sometimes I can't help them. I feel sorry for anyone who knows you.



Stephen L. Cochran, Ph.D.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional since 1998
Windows Outlook Express / Windows Mail

Jason's ) history, for lurkers: http://groups.google.com/group/micro...a2b46c6ce1ba0a
--
~PAÞ

Steve Cochran wrote:
snip

This is ridiculous. You complained in email and now you are complaining in
the public newsgroups under a false alias. You hammer my program due to
your ignorance and you don't even have the decency to use your real name or
email address.

Tell me something. You have lost your messages from the inbox. Maybe the
disk clusters still hold some of those messages. So how is the program
supposed to know what folders those messages relate to? HUNH? That just
shows how little you understand.


You should take these things into serious consideration before purchasing
DBXpress.

Jason


And anyone who reads this should take into consideration that whoever posted
it is computer illiterate and attacking my program anonymously.

I spent days emailing you and helping you trying to recover your messages
that YOU lost and blame Microsoft for. Most people thank me, even though
sometimes I can't help them. I feel sorry for anyone who knows you.

Stephen L. Cochran, Ph.D.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional since 1998
Windows Outlook Express / Windows Mail

On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 10:10:02 -0700, jason wrote:

There have been a lot of threads regarding the flaw in OE6 that causes entire
folders to be lost if you interrupt the compacting process. Unfortunately,
OE6 gives you the option to "Cancel" the compacting process at any time
without warning you that anything will occur as a result of your doing so.
This is a serious design flaw that has not been remedied by Microsoft.

Actually, it may have been. I am not able to test Windows Live Mail
Desktop, or whatever they are calling the next level email client.
Strictly speaking, it isn't a "replacement" for MSOE because it won't
run on older computers. It reportedly has fixed whatever is wrong with
the .dbx format which lends itself to corruption. OTOH, I have never had
my files corrupted in MSOE.

However, I know almost a dozen persons who have tried the recovery program
DBXpress with no measurable success. I note that it is recommended by most
techs in this newsgroup on a regular basis including by the person who
designed the program. But this program is equally flawed. The chances are
very good that you will not "extract from file," which is the only option
that will allow you to filter or specify what folders you want to recover
from.

The measure of success of the program really depends upon what remains
of the data in the disk clusters. When the pointers in the database are
corrupt, finding the missing pieces is next to impossible. I seem to
recall that there is always the caveat given with the recommendation.
DBXpress is a _last resort_ measure, after all else has failed, and
there is no guaranty that the results will be as desired.

If you are forced to "extract from drive," you must have a 2nd hard drive
available to avoid corruption and over-writing and you will be unable to
specify the folders you want. This means you will get every message you
already have as well as deleted messages with little chance at that point of
recovering any of your lost messages. This can be an organizational nightmare
and none of this is openly disclosed before you purchase the program.

Never having used the program, I can't address the specifics. However,
having worked on the lowest level of data written to hard drives, I know
that "missing" data is often present in unused disk clusters. However,
to avoid overwriting unused clusters, you must not access the disk in
any manner which will result in the disk controller assigning an unused
cluster to a new file. The whole point of marking clusters as unused is
to make them available for reuse.

Mucking around with data at the lowest level of disk access is always
risky. Every application that I have used which gives this kind of
low-level access to the data on the disk warns about the hazards of
writing to the disk at this level.

You should take these things into serious consideration before purchasing
DBXpress.

You should take into consideration that _any_ application which access
the disk _outside_ of the file access control system, be it FAT, FAT32,
NTFS, or something else, is risky, and won't always provide the desired
outcome.

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

Thank you Norman. That was a better method of clarification than I was
objectively able to explain, particularly given the several number of
messages I sent to that user via email trying to help them.

cheers,

steve

"N. Miller" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 10:10:02 -0700, jason wrote:

There have been a lot of threads regarding the flaw in OE6 that causes
entire
folders to be lost if you interrupt the compacting process.
Unfortunately,
OE6 gives you the option to "Cancel" the compacting process at any time
without warning you that anything will occur as a result of your doing
so.
This is a serious design flaw that has not been remedied by Microsoft.

Actually, it may have been. I am not able to test Windows Live Mail
Desktop, or whatever they are calling the next level email client.
Strictly speaking, it isn't a "replacement" for MSOE because it won't
run on older computers. It reportedly has fixed whatever is wrong with
the .dbx format which lends itself to corruption. OTOH, I have never had
my files corrupted in MSOE.

However, I know almost a dozen persons who have tried the recovery
program
DBXpress with no measurable success. I note that it is recommended by
most
techs in this newsgroup on a regular basis including by the person who
designed the program. But this program is equally flawed. The chances are
very good that you will not "extract from file," which is the only option
that will allow you to filter or specify what folders you want to recover
from.

The measure of success of the program really depends upon what remains
of the data in the disk clusters. When the pointers in the database are
corrupt, finding the missing pieces is next to impossible. I seem to
recall that there is always the caveat given with the recommendation.
DBXpress is a _last resort_ measure, after all else has failed, and
there is no guaranty that the results will be as desired.

If you are forced to "extract from drive," you must have a 2nd hard drive
available to avoid corruption and over-writing and you will be unable to
specify the folders you want. This means you will get every message you
already have as well as deleted messages with little chance at that point
of
recovering any of your lost messages. This can be an organizational
nightmare
and none of this is openly disclosed before you purchase the program.

Never having used the program, I can't address the specifics. However,
having worked on the lowest level of data written to hard drives, I know
that "missing" data is often present in unused disk clusters. However,
to avoid overwriting unused clusters, you must not access the disk in
any manner which will result in the disk controller assigning an unused
cluster to a new file. The whole point of marking clusters as unused is
to make them available for reuse.

Mucking around with data at the lowest level of disk access is always
risky. Every application that I have used which gives this kind of
low-level access to the data on the disk warns about the hazards of
writing to the disk at this level.

You should take these things into serious consideration before purchasing
DBXpress.

You should take into consideration that _any_ application which access
the disk _outside_ of the file access control system, be it FAT, FAT32,
NTFS, or something else, is risky, and won't always provide the desired
outcome.

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

That wasn't the only fake alias.

There was an additional thread from this user as well. Fortunately there is
a IP address in the header of the messages that can be tracked back to them
regardless of their fake email address.

And I know who they are, regardless of the fake post.

steve

"PA Bear" wrote in message
...
Jason's ) history, for lurkers:
http://groups.google.com/group/micro...a2b46c6ce1ba0a
--
~PAÞ

Steve Cochran wrote:
snip
This is ridiculous. You complained in email and now you are complaining
in
the public newsgroups under a false alias. You hammer my program due to
your ignorance and you don't even have the decency to use your real name
or
email address.

Tell me something. You have lost your messages from the inbox. Maybe
the
disk clusters still hold some of those messages. So how is the program
supposed to know what folders those messages relate to? HUNH? That just
shows how little you understand.

You should take these things into serious consideration before
purchasing
DBXpress.

Jason

And anyone who reads this should take into consideration that whoever
posted
it is computer illiterate and attacking my program anonymously.

I spent days emailing you and helping you trying to recover your messages
that YOU lost and blame Microsoft for. Most people thank me, even though
sometimes I can't help them. I feel sorry for anyone who knows you.

Stephen L. Cochran, Ph.D.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional since 1998
Windows Outlook Express / Windows Mail

Warning: Jason is incompetent to judge anything about computers and
software. It is willful ignorance.

"jason" wrote in message
...
There have been a lot of threads regarding the flaw in OE6 that causes
entire
folders to be lost if you interrupt the compacting process. Unfortunately,
OE6 gives you the option to "Cancel" the compacting process at any time
without warning you that anything will occur as a result of your doing so.
This is a serious design flaw that has not been remedied by Microsoft.

However, I know almost a dozen persons who have tried the recovery program
DBXpress with no measurable success. I note that it is recommended by most
techs in this newsgroup on a regular basis including by the person who
designed the program. But this program is equally flawed. The chances are
very good that you will not "extract from file," which is the only option
that will allow you to filter or specify what folders you want to recover
from.

If you are forced to "extract from drive," you must have a 2nd hard drive
available to avoid corruption and over-writing and you will be unable to
specify the folders you want. This means you will get every message you
already have as well as deleted messages with little chance at that point
of
recovering any of your lost messages. This can be an organizational
nightmare
and none of this is openly disclosed before you purchase the program.

You should take these things into serious consideration before purchasing
DBXpress.

Jason

Jason - I had the same experience with DBXpress and couldn't agree with you
more. I also haven't talked with anyone who has had any success with the
program. And there are system requirements and program limitations of the
extract from file option that had I know about it upfront, I would never have
purchased this program. It was a complete waste of my time and money. BUYER
BEWARE!

"jason" wrote:

There have been a lot of threads regarding the flaw in OE6 that causes entire
folders to be lost if you interrupt the compacting process. Unfortunately,
OE6 gives you the option to "Cancel" the compacting process at any time
without warning you that anything will occur as a result of your doing so.
This is a serious design flaw that has not been remedied by Microsoft.

However, I know almost a dozen persons who have tried the recovery program
DBXpress with no measurable success. I note that it is recommended by most
techs in this newsgroup on a regular basis including by the person who
designed the program. But this program is equally flawed. The chances are
very good that you will not "extract from file," which is the only option
that will allow you to filter or specify what folders you want to recover
from.

If you are forced to "extract from drive," you must have a 2nd hard drive
available to avoid corruption and over-writing and you will be unable to
specify the folders you want. This means you will get every message you
already have as well as deleted messages with little chance at that point of
recovering any of your lost messages. This can be an organizational nightmare
and none of this is openly disclosed before you purchase the program.

You should take these things into serious consideration before purchasing
DBXpress.

Jason

donna wrote:
Jason - I had the same experience with DBXpress and couldn't agree with you
more. I also haven't talked with anyone who has had any success with the
program. And there are system requirements and program limitations of the
extract from file option that had I know about it upfront, I would never have
purchased this program. It was a complete waste of my time and money. BUYER
BEWARE!

No need to beware anything if you keep a back up of OE current and on
removable media. I could lose all my messages right now and in less than
one minute, have them all -- except some I just sent -- back and ready
to go. Back up is a computer user's best friend ;-)

Here's a good back up program:

http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx

Here's a good tool to compact your messages manually and set the count
back to zero so that if you have a power failure or compacting is
interrupted some other way -- and it happens to be the 100th time you
close OE -- you won't lose your messages. If you receive a lot of
messages, compact daily. If you get ten emails a week, monthly :-)

http://www.oehelp.com/OETool/Default.aspx

It does a lot of other things besides compact.

Both programs are free ware and I have had very positive experience with
both of them.

Alias

"jason" wrote:

There have been a lot of threads regarding the flaw in OE6 that causes entire
folders to be lost if you interrupt the compacting process. Unfortunately,
OE6 gives you the option to "Cancel" the compacting process at any time
without warning you that anything will occur as a result of your doing so.
This is a serious design flaw that has not been remedied by Microsoft.

However, I know almost a dozen persons who have tried the recovery program
DBXpress with no measurable success. I note that it is recommended by most
techs in this newsgroup on a regular basis including by the person who
designed the program. But this program is equally flawed. The chances are
very good that you will not "extract from file," which is the only option
that will allow you to filter or specify what folders you want to recover
from.

If you are forced to "extract from drive," you must have a 2nd hard drive
available to avoid corruption and over-writing and you will be unable to
specify the folders you want. This means you will get every message you
already have as well as deleted messages with little chance at that point of
recovering any of your lost messages. This can be an organizational nightmare
and none of this is openly disclosed before you purchase the program.

You should take these things into serious consideration before purchasing
DBXpress.

Jason