Thick question I am afraid
 

I run out look express for mail & a week ago it crashed losing many folders !

In the past I have compacted when asked to ! Does that mean some where in my computer are copies of any old emails ?

Presume i wont be able to restore them though ? I am running XP

Cheers

Paul

Not sure if this will help you recover old files but will tell you how to backup for the future.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q270670

Don't think the Compact option creates backups. In the full app, all it does it shrink the size of the files to actually delete the e-mails.

Can't help you but do yourself a favour and either ditch OE or copy the folders off to another device every day to make sure it's backed up.