Imported Mailbox Messages Don't Show Sender or Subject

For my last 3 computers, I have always saved the mailbox files from Outlook
Express to a CD, then imported them into each newer computer's Outlook
Express, under a separate OE identity (like "oldmail", or
"mails2002_2004").. The imported messages have come from OE5 and also, I
believe, older versions of OE.

What I always find is that OE successfully imports a number of messages into
each mailbox. Then at some point OE begins dropping the info as to sender
and subject. The messages are imported, but now sender or subject appears in
the mailbox view, and when I open the messages they say (unspecified sender)
and (no subject). The problem is that, while it's good that I still have the
messages, it is difficult to search for the old mails when I need them,
without searchable sender and subject fields.

This problem only happens with large mailboxes. Some of these mailboxes
contain many messages, and many attachments.

I have tried trial versions of a couple of OE mailbox repair utilities, but
none of them have fixed this issue. This has happened more than once -- it
happens every time I import my old mailboxes, into each new computer.

Any ideas, please, about how I may more fully recover these messages, so as
to be able to read and search the sender and subject info?

I assume that as a preventive, next time I should split large mailboxes into
smaller ones before saving to CD, but I am hoping there's a way I can more
repair and fully read the data on the messages already imported.

Thanks...

It does sound like the old DBX files were corrupted at some point

Since you are seeing the header information in the message viewing
window, it should be possible to fix those messages. But it's going to
be tedious.

- Do a File, Save As to save the message to an *.EML file, or
drag-and-drop the message to Windows folder
- Then edit the file in Notepad or other text editor. Fix the message
header. The first blank line indicates the end of headers. Sounds like
there is an extraneous blank line either at the start of the headers or
somewhere in the middle. Delete that line.
- Save the file.
- With OE5+, you can drag-and-drop the message back to an OE folder.
- You can then delete the original message.


--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm


"Ted Kerin" wrote in message
ink.net...
For my last 3 computers, I have always saved the mailbox files from
Outlook Express to a CD, then imported them into each newer computer's
Outlook Express, under a separate OE identity (like "oldmail", or
"mails2002_2004").. The imported messages have come from OE5 and also,
I believe, older versions of OE.

What I always find is that OE successfully imports a number of
messages into each mailbox. Then at some point OE begins dropping the
info as to sender and subject. The messages are imported, but now
sender or subject appears in the mailbox view, and when I open the
messages they say (unspecified sender) and (no subject). The problem
is that, while it's good that I still have the messages, it is
difficult to search for the old mails when I need them, without
searchable sender and subject fields.

This problem only happens with large mailboxes. Some of these
mailboxes contain many messages, and many attachments.

I have tried trial versions of a couple of OE mailbox repair
utilities, but none of them have fixed this issue. This has happened
more than once -- it happens every time I import my old mailboxes,
into each new computer.

Any ideas, please, about how I may more fully recover these messages,
so as to be able to read and search the sender and subject info?

I assume that as a preventive, next time I should split large
mailboxes into smaller ones before saving to CD, but I am hoping
there's a way I can more repair and fully read the data on the
messages already imported.

Thanks...

I suspect the messages are damaged during import (if not before) and
consequently, you can't recover the information that is lost. To check what
Michael suggests, try a CTRL-F3 on the message and see if those fields that
are missing are still there in the message header. If so, then you can try
what he suggests, although that would be extremely tedious.

You might consider my DBXtract or DBXpress extraction programs, which can
extract the messages intact and then they can be dragged back into OE. That
might eliminate the issues. See www.oehelp.com

steve

"Ted Kerin" wrote in message
ink.net...
For my last 3 computers, I have always saved the mailbox files from
Outlook Express to a CD, then imported them into each newer computer's
Outlook Express, under a separate OE identity (like "oldmail", or
"mails2002_2004").. The imported messages have come from OE5 and also, I
believe, older versions of OE.

What I always find is that OE successfully imports a number of messages
into each mailbox. Then at some point OE begins dropping the info as to
sender and subject. The messages are imported, but now sender or subject
appears in the mailbox view, and when I open the messages they say
(unspecified sender) and (no subject). The problem is that, while it's
good that I still have the messages, it is difficult to search for the old
mails when I need them, without searchable sender and subject fields.

This problem only happens with large mailboxes. Some of these mailboxes
contain many messages, and many attachments.

I have tried trial versions of a couple of OE mailbox repair utilities,
but none of them have fixed this issue. This has happened more than
once -- it happens every time I import my old mailboxes, into each new
computer.

Any ideas, please, about how I may more fully recover these messages, so
as to be able to read and search the sender and subject info?

I assume that as a preventive, next time I should split large mailboxes
into smaller ones before saving to CD, but I am hoping there's a way I can
more repair and fully read the data on the messages already imported.

Thanks...

Thanks for the replies.