After compacting OE, I lost a year's worth of emails from my Inbox and Sent
Items folder. Thanks to instructions provided by Bruce Hagen in another
thread, I was able to retrieve my Sent Items and created a Saved Sent Items
folder for archiving. But for some strange reason I could not find the Inbox
backup file in my Trash folder to retrieve my old Inbox folder! (It was
there when I first looked there, but then went missing when I started to
restore the folders to the correct hidden file location of my OE files, and
then rename them from ".bak" to ".dbx".)

At first my welcome screen showed no new email messages. But then after
running a "System Restore" to a date before I compacted OE and lost my
emails, my welcome page now shows that I have many unread messages, so I know
the lost Inbox file is somewhere. But when I open OE, the Inbox is empty.
(Only my newly-created Saved Inbox folder contains email.)

When I search for Inbox.*, I find several versions.
One Inbox.dbx file is in "C:\Documents and Settings\yja\My Documents\Outlook
Express, but is only 11 KB and last modified in June 2006, which was when my
hard drive was replaced.

Another Inbox.dbx file is in the hidden file location of my OE files (where
all the other OE file folders are located), and shows that it is 746.5 KB
large*, last modified with today's date. (*Yeah, I know, I know… that was
the problem. I've learned my lesson the hard way not to use default OE
folders for archiving.) I'm assuming that's the file I need.

Questions:
If I'm correct in my assumption that is the file I need, then how do I get
the 746.5 KB file to do what it's supposed to do? That is, show up as the
Inbox with all the email files in OE?

If it's not the correct file, then How do I find the correct file so I can
retrieve my lost Inbox and its contents?

I was considering purchasing DBXpress, but found the help file confusing.
I'm not convinced that it will find and restore that one missing Inbox for
me. If that's the only way to go, then please let me know and provide
instructions.

FYI, I have read the information in all the live links provided in Bruce
Hagen's reply in another thread. Nice to know OE can be backed up and
restored! Once I fix my Inbox, I will back up everything! This has been a
nerve-wracking three days.

I appreciate your continued help.

yja127