make sure that your hidden files and file extensions are viewable.
You can access those functions from 'Folder Options' in My Computer.
Leave the My Computer window open....
Open OE, click Tools, then Options.
Click the Maintenance tab, then the Store Folder button.
You should see the path to the location of the stored .dbx files.
Right-click the path and click Select All.
Right-click the path again and click Copy.
Go back to My Computer and right-click in the Address bar and click paste.
Press Enter, which will take you to the location where these files are stored.
At this point you want to make sure that OE is closed, because backing up these
files with OE open may result in corrupt back-up files. So go back to OE and click
Cancel on the Store Folder dialog box, then click Cancel on the Options window.
Exit OE before proceeding.
Now you can copy the files you need. Don't move/delete them. You can back-up to
another folder, floppy or cd.
Once you have OE fixed, create a new folder and name it something distinctly different
than Inbox, Outbox, etc. Do this by right-clicking Local Folder in OE and choose New Folder.
Follow the above instructions to get to the location again, close OE and copy/move your
.dbx files into the new folder you created (Drag and drop works). You may want to create several new folders for the various categories. To keep it coherent, you could create an INcopy, OUTcopy, DELcopy, SENTcopy folder. If you copy a back-up folder into a folder that has some .dbx files in it, these will be overwritten, hence the need for new seperate folders.
You can move e-mails later, once you are in OE.
By creating a special folder for "bad" e-mails, you can use this technique to lift them onto an isolated box.
Let me know if this works for you.