outlook express ruined after trying to change hotmail a/c.

[#1]

Hi everyone,i tried to update my settings on outlook express to make my hotmail a/c into pop3 a/c,so i wouldnt have to mess about using the hotmail live and express.I thought id sort of managed it,the outlook express seemed to download both my plusnet emails and hotmail but whatever i have done,i seem to have lost all my saved emails and all my plusnet email details the lots gone.I do have what looks like most of my hotmail addreses in the livehotmail a/c but where is all my old folders gone from outlook express.Theres more but thats enough to be going on with.I did try to do a system restore but for some reason that didnt work either,thats never happened before and i havent got the switch off tick box ticked.                                                                        can anyone help at all please.kind regards ray.

[#2]

The first thing to see is if the emails are still on your hard drive as you may just have created another account which doesn't see them
They should be somewhere like this and are .dbx files
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{string of letters and numbers}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

[#3]

Thanks for that old jim,i think i will try this tomorrow and see what i can find,i dont want to do anything tonight,have been hard at it all day with work but thanks again.        regards ray.

[#4]

Quote from: owlguard

Hi everyone,i tried to update my settings on outlook express to make my hotmail a/c into pop3 a/c...etc

I have recently done this without any problems. I was "collecting" Hotmail by OE but of course the folders were on the Hotmail sever and only sync'd to OE.
I collect 4 different email accounts using OE and POP3 and Hotmail.  Now Hotmail POP3 as well.  As far as I understand it, POP3 Hotmail will only collect mails from the Hotmail inbox.  Any folders you have on Hotmail will not be downloaded (These behave a bit like IMAP folders).  After setting up POP3 email you have to add new folders in OE and then copy all the emails from the Hotmail folder the normal OE folders.

[#5]

Hi Nick,thanks for that,i sort of understand whats going off i think now, but i have lost all my saved plusnet messages e.t.c.I have seen on the hotmail live forums,dozens who once switched over just seemed to get there o e zapped of everything and the next thing they and i noticed was the o e was a new o e and everything disappeared,by what the people in the know at microsoft were saying,mainly its tough titty time,weve zapped em all.Maybe they meant hotmail but unless somebody has a miracle up there sleeve,i think my plusnet ones has gone as well.
                                                                                                              thanks and regards ray.
adie:blue large amounts of whitespace removed mod:end

[#6]

how about installing another email client  then just import the the mail - that'll work as long as the mail in *.dbx files is still in its default directory .... won't it?
Went all open source & imported all my outlook express emails into thunderbird a while back -- might have done it via outlook 2003 -- so long ago is hard to remember!
but there is an import from outlook express in the current version of mozilla thunderbird
had a peek where Oldjim suggested & the old dbx files are still there with me -- more junk files for me to delete, had forgotten about them