Identity Chaos

I experienced a significant hard drive "event" and had to reinstall my
operating system. I was able to copy just about everything onto an external
drive before reinstalling. I did not have the luxury of backing up Outlook
Express prior to the reinstall. I have been trying to figure out a way to
have OE now "point" to the old identities without any luck. I have moved my
old dbx files into the identity that OE is now pointing to and it doesn't
recognize them. Please help! These files have years of mail history that are
critical to my business. Thank you.

Put the dbx files in a folder on the hard drive. Mark sure the Read Only
attribute is not checked.
In OE, File, Import, Messages, OE6, select message store and browse to your
folder.
--
Ron Sommer

"DDC" wrote in message
news
I experienced a significant hard drive "event" and had to reinstall my
operating system. I was able to copy just about everything onto an
external
drive before reinstalling. I did not have the luxury of backing up Outlook
Express prior to the reinstall. I have been trying to figure out a way to
have OE now "point" to the old identities without any luck. I have moved
my
old dbx files into the identity that OE is now pointing to and it doesn't
recognize them. Please help! These files have years of mail history that
are
critical to my business. Thank you.

You will need to import the data into your current identity.

References:

Importing OE Data (all DBX files, including Folders.dbx)
http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/how.htm#importOE5

Importing a single DBX file
http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/how.htm#importdbx
http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx#imp1


DDC wrote:
I experienced a significant hard drive "event" and had to reinstall my
operating system. I was able to copy just about everything onto an
external
drive before reinstalling. I did not have the luxury of backing up Outlook
Express prior to the reinstall. I have been trying to figure out a way to
have OE now "point" to the old identities without any luck. I have moved
my
old dbx files into the identity that OE is now pointing to and it doesn't
recognize them. Please help! These files have years of mail history that
are
critical to my business. Thank you.

Hi Ron,

Thanks for taking the time to respond to me. I followed your advice (making
sure the files are not read only) and went through the import wizard. I got
no errors and yet it did not import any of my dbx files.

I was able to use the tip below to copy a single dbx file over, but have
about 40 dbx files and worry about the long term impact of the additional
brain damage I will incur from doing these one by one :) Any insights would
be greatly appreciated!

Importing single dbx files into OE

To backup and restore a single OE5 or 6 mail folder, save the appropriate
dbx file. To restore, create a new folder in OE5 or 6 (call it archiv1, for
example) and access it once. Then close OE and find archiv1.dbx and delete
it. Make a copy of the folder you want to restore and rename it to
archiv1.dbx. Then copy that file into the directory where the previous file
was deleted. Open OE and the messages you wanted to restore will be
accessible via opening that archiv1 folder.

Thanks tons,
Dawn

"Ron Sommer" wrote:

Put the dbx files in a folder on the hard drive. Mark sure the Read Only
attribute is not checked.
In OE, File, Import, Messages, OE6, select message store and browse to your
folder.
--
Ron Sommer

"DDC" wrote in message
news
I experienced a significant hard drive "event" and had to reinstall my
operating system. I was able to copy just about everything onto an
external
drive before reinstalling. I did not have the luxury of backing up Outlook
Express prior to the reinstall. I have been trying to figure out a way to
have OE now "point" to the old identities without any luck. I have moved
my
old dbx files into the identity that OE is now pointing to and it doesn't
recognize them. Please help! These files have years of mail history that
are
critical to my business. Thank you.

Did you back-up set include the file FOLDERS.DBX?

DDC wrote:
Hi Ron,

Thanks for taking the time to respond to me. I followed your advice
(making
sure the files are not read only) and went through the import wizard. I
got
no errors and yet it did not import any of my dbx files.

I was able to use the tip below to copy a single dbx file over, but have
about 40 dbx files and worry about the long term impact of the additional
brain damage I will incur from doing these one by one :) Any insights
would be greatly appreciated!

Importing single dbx files into OE

To backup and restore a single OE5 or 6 mail folder, save the appropriate
dbx file. To restore, create a new folder in OE5 or 6 (call it archiv1,
for
example) and access it once. Then close OE and find archiv1.dbx and delete
it. Make a copy of the folder you want to restore and rename it to
archiv1.dbx. Then copy that file into the directory where the previous
file
was deleted. Open OE and the messages you wanted to restore will be
accessible via opening that archiv1 folder.

Thanks tons,
Dawn

"Ron Sommer" wrote:

Put the dbx files in a folder on the hard drive. Mark sure the Read Only
attribute is not checked.
In OE, File, Import, Messages, OE6, select message store and browse to
your
folder.
--
Ron Sommer

"DDC" wrote in message
news
I experienced a significant hard drive "event" and had to reinstall my
operating system. I was able to copy just about everything onto an
external
drive before reinstalling. I did not have the luxury of backing up
Outlook
Express prior to the reinstall. I have been trying to figure out a way
to
have OE now "point" to the old identities without any luck. I have moved
my
old dbx files into the identity that OE is now pointing to and it
doesn't
recognize them. Please help! These files have years of mail history that
are
critical to my business. Thank you.