Identity Corruption May Cause Data Loss in Microsoft Outlook Express

Microsoft Outlook Express is an email-client, which comes bundled with Microsoft Internet Explorer. It enables you to you create different user accounts on the same computer by creating Identities. An Identity is a separate message store, which contains emails, contacts, notes, and personal settings of the associated user. It also helps you to configure multiple email accounts on same computer. You can switch identities to access particular user account. Sometimes the identity may get damaged due to application malfunction, virus infection, and other similar reasons. It causes data loss and puts you in need of Outlook Express Repair solutions, if you do not have an updated backup in place.

For separate users to keep their Outlook Express database totally separate, you need to configure every identity with separate email account. Configuring a new identity creates an individual store folder and a new registry keys. When identity gets damaged, you need to create a new identity to Repair Outlook Express data files. Follow the given steps to create a new identity in Microsoft Outlook Express:

Export all your email accounts in MS OE so that you can import it further into a new identity. If the DBX (Database eXtension) data files of Outlook Express are damaged, the export operation may not work properly.

(1) Click Identities on File menu, and then select the Add New Identity option.

(2) Type a suitable name for the new identity and click OK button.

(3) Click Yes button for switching to new Identity.

(4) Click the Cancel button to close New Account wizard. In case Outlook Express prompts you to import the settings or messages, click Cancel or select “Do not import at this time” option.

(5) Select Accounts on Tools menu.

(6) Click Import button and then choose first *.iaf file and repeat the same process for all the accounts.

(7) Import emails from old Identity.

The above steps help you to retrieve your Outlook Express data if the problem is caused by Identity corruption. However, if DBX file corruption is the cause of this problem, this method can not help you to repair corrupt files.

In such cases, DBX Repair software come to your rescue. These are third-party applications, which use advanced scanning methods to extract all inaccessible data. An Outlook Express Repair Tool offers simple and secure recovery in all corruption scenarios.

Stellar Phoenix Outlook Express Recovery v3.0 successfully repairs corrupt DBX files and restores them as either .eml or .dbx files. This Outlook Express Repair software restores emails, contacts, notes, tasks, journals, attachments, and all other DBX file objects. It works well with Microsoft Outlook Express 6.x and 5.x.

Unable To Access OE Store Folder after Renaming Folders.dbx

Dbx Repair - Outlook Express Store Folder stores all your mail folders (*.dbx files), Hotmail folders, local IMAP, subscribed newsgroups and messages. The location of folder depends on the installed operating system and upgrade history. Outlook Express is not a dedicated application and can grow with problems that may corrupt its *.dbx files in Store Folder. The folders like, Inbox or Sent Items, are comparatively more prone to corruption because it is easy for them to become large. If one of these folders gets corrupt or stops storing more email messages, deleting or renaming usually solves the problem. The folder should only be deleted when you have a proper backup or the folder doesn't contain any important emails. To repair the corrupted OE folders, you need to use a proper Outlook Express Repair solution.

To exemplify such problems, consider a scenario as below:

(1) You try to open Outlook Express, but fail to access Store Folder.
(2) You cannot access Store Folder when trying to import *.dbx files in Outlook Express.
(3) You try to rename or copy the Folders.dbx file and then import, but it doesn't work too.

Cause

Most likely, the above behavior occurs when the folder file (Folders.dbx) and/or Inbox file (Inbox.dbx) is damaged.

Solution

Outlook Express recreates the mail folders once it finds them missing or deleted at next start. Thus, you can follow these steps to overcome the existing issue:

(1) Close Outlook Express so that the folders stop receiving more email messages.
(2) Click Start Search (or Find) and locate Folders.dbx and Inbox.dbx. For this, you need to type the file name in search for All files and folders named box and click Search.
(3) You can rename or delete (provided a backup is available) the located folders to OldFolders.dbx or OldInbox.dbx respectively.
(4) Move the OldInbox.dbx to another folder and restart Outlook Express.

To retrieve emails from corrupted Inbox, you need to use a third-party Express Repair tool. These are specialized Outlook Express Repair tools built to run exclusive repair algorithms that prove competent at repairing a damaged OE folder corrupted due to any cause.

Stellar Phoenix Outlook Express Recovery is a reliable, instant and advanced solution that repairs corrupted *.dbx files created with Outlook Express 5.x and Outlook Express 6.x. The comprehensive Outlook Express Repair utility provides self-descriptive interface requiring no technical skills. The software is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003 and 2000.

satellite internet service

Emails Missing in Microsoft Outlook Express 6.0 SP1 or SP2

With each new release of Outlook Express patches and service packs, the application and its mail folders are considered to be more safer. But .dbx file corruption is not an exception in any case. Outlook Express .dbx files are prone to host of corruption problems. The folders once corrupted should either be recreated or restored from the recent backup. In case when no suitable backup is present, you should opt for an efficient Outlook Express Repair Tool to recover corrupted .dbx files.

Consider a scenario when you use Microsoft Outlook Express 6.0 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or Microsoft Outlook Express 6.0 Service Pack 2 (SP2) installed on a Windows XP-based computer. You start Outlook Express and notice that all email items are not visible in respective folders. All email messages are missing.

Cause

The above problem results if Outlook Express .dbx file or contacts database is damaged due to compaction. The .dbx file can get corrupt out of these frequent reasons:

(1) You interrupt the compaction process.
(2) You start the .dbx file compaction process when Outlook Express is closed.
(3) The file size of DBX is quite large, generally more than 1 GB.
(4) You leave Outlook Express running for a long interval of time and don't exit it.

Solution

To prevent such DBX corruption from occurring, you should install the security update MS06-076. After you install the update, Outlook Express creates the .dbx file backup in Recycle Bin before compacting it. The file is stored as mail_folder_name.bak. Where, mail_folder_name is the name of folder that has been compacted. To restore the corrupted folder's contents, you can restore it from Recycle Bin

However, if you have deleted the .bak file or the folders have got corrupted since you didn't install the update, you need a complete backup to restore the lost emails. The backup can fail if is not updated or is corrupt too. In such situations, you require a comprehensive Outlook Express Repair solution that can repair and restore corrupted .dbx files at a safe location.

Outlook Express Repair software are highly competent products that can analyze a corrupted Outlook Express file safely and extract data from.

Stellar Phoenix Outlook Express Recovery is an advanced mail recovery utility designed to repair corrupted DBX files created with Outlook Express 5.x and 6.x. It is a powerful, yet non-destructive Outlook Express Repair software that uses effective scanning algorithms. It can also repair *.eml messages that can be directly opened and viewed in Outlook Express.