How to Fix corrupted identity in Outlook Express

Help on corrupted identity in Outlook Express

My operating system is Windows ME and right now I seem to have a problem with a corrupted identity (my primary email address no less) on Outlook Express. It won't give me access to my main identity, although it allows access to other identities on the same account, and all my archived Inbox messages suddenly disappeared. I spoke with an Earthlink employee yesterday who tried to help but ultimately said the error message indicated a corrupt folder within Outlook Express. Does anyone know how to fix a corrupted identity in Outlook Express? Thanks.

Not that I know of. Here is a link to a program which will supposedly let you extract mail directly from the inbox.dbx file. Once you have your mail backed up, you could try re-installing Outlook Express. That's the only way that I know of to fix it. The program is called OE Mail Recovery:

http://www.oemailrecovery.com/repair-outlook-express.html

The Folders.dbx file is probably what's corrupted. The Identity you can load...Tools | Options | "Maintenance" tab | Press the "Store Folders" button | Note the location of the message stores (dbx files) | Close OE.

Make the message stores (dbx files) visible if they aren't already (Open Windows Explorer | Tools | Folder Options | "Views" tab | Select "Show hidden files and folders" | Uncheck "Hide file extensions for known file types" | Click Apply then OK). The files will now be visible in Windows Explorer.

Do a search for *.dbx files (Start | Search | All Files and folders | Click More Advanced Options | Include hidden files and folders | Enter *dbx and search | Note the locations of the dbx files. The one that is not in the location you found above in the Store Folders dialog, is the location you want to rename...Folders.dbx to Folders.old, then start OE and switch to that identity.