MikeR said:
Thanks, Patrick -
When I open OE I get "There was a problem switching folders, possibly
because the folder was busy. Please wait a moment and try again"
No joy importing old messages. I can go there, but I'm told "No messages
can be found in this folder or another application is running that has the
required files open".
Make sure you've actually found the store folder and that the contents are
not read-only. I usually use Agent Ransack from the root of the drive or
the base of the Docs and Settings folder to be sure I've found all of them,
searching for *.dbx.
http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/
When you have found the folders, copy the folders with contents complete,
somewhere else. In this case, you might want to copy them to CD or DVD as
well for safety. You may be unable to import them from the CD or DVD as
read-only.
Once you have copied the entire message store folder somewhere else, import
the messages from there. Be sure that the folder and all files are marked
as read-write.
The recycle bin has several copies of various mail folders, but restoring
them soes nothing. When I look in the folder it looks empty. I have
Explorer set to show hidden files/folders and system files.
There are other woes as well. IE doesn't show the Help icon, rather arrows
indicating more options off screen, but clicking doesn't open any thing. I
can't tell what version of IE I'm running, but the current Google
searchbar won't install.
I can't get Windows to updates because IE is blocking ActiveX's, but when
I click on the toolbar to change options, nothing happens.
Windows help doesn't run.
When I see this kind of thing I start to evaluate the value of the time it's
going to take to fix it against the cost of another drive and a clean fresh
install. Where I am, a new 250 gig drive is under $100, 500gig just
over. And I can do a complete installation of Windows and major apps in a
few hours, most of which is letting the system run by itself and coming back
to click the mouse, change CDs or enter a key once in a while. I direct
most of my attention elsewhere during this exercise.
The original drive is removed, set aside, and treated as a backup source.
User data is copied from it later after the system is running properly (I
use FileSync,
http://www.fileware.com/ to move the data). The result is
a properly running system and fewer hours billed.
The alternative is spending possibly much more time completely focused on
tracking down obscure problems, and likely a much higher bill that has a
caveat that the problems may not have all been found. And since you're
using the same disk, you have to have backed it up first, which requires
another disk anyway, and more time.
HTH
-pk
