How to backup your e-mail messages

From: The Jakarta Post

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): A colleague found that his Toshiba notebook had become so messy that the only sensible thing to do was to reformat the hard disk and reinstall everything afresh. Good idea!

But what about the bulk of the e-mail he accumulated? As a researcher, he collected a lot of data and reports from sources all over the world. He asked me what he should do to avoid losing the e-mail messages forever.

I honestly did not know. After thinking for a while, I suggested that he create a new e-mail account at Hotmail or Mailcity, and then forward all the precious e-mail messages to that new account. That sounded like a clever idea because he could later forward them again to his POP E-mail account, to be subsequently downloaded to the newly reinstalled system. But, when you are talking about hundreds of e-mail messages, the idea immediately becomes impractical.

So, I studied up and found out what we can do to back up all the e-mail messages so that we can reformat our hard disk.

Store folder

First of all, we have a complication here caused by the fact that Outlook Express (OE) Version 4.0 has a different configuration than Version 5.0. In OE5, we can specify where we want to store the downloaded e-mail messages. The default may be C:WindowsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook Express. To find where exactly your OE5 stores your e-mail stuff, go to Tools and then click on Options. When the Options dialog box appears, click on the Maintenance tab. Click on the Store Folder button, and you will see the path to the folder where OE5 stores all e-mail files. Write this down carefully because it may be a long path with cryptic subfolder names. In OE5, the extension for the file names is DBX.

If you are still using OE4, the file names have MBX and IDX extensions. They are located in C:WindowsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook ExpressMail.

Before you start backing up the files in this folder, it is a good idea to spend some time going through the list of e-mails in all the folders. Delete all the messages that you are not going to need in the future, such as those jokes that people have been dumping on you.

If you have accumulated hundreds of messages already, it's also a good idea to use a file compression utility such as Winzip to reduce the size of the files that you will need to backup. The smaller the size, the faster the process will be. Besides, you will have to deal with a single file only. You can store the .ZIP file in C:My Documents of the your hard disk, for example.

Next, you will have to decide where you want to store the backup file. If you have a second hard disk in your system with a lot of empty space, your job will be easy. You also will have no problem if your notebook or PC is connected to a network and you have a server that can accommodate the files temporarily. If you can borrow a friend's Zip or LS 120 drive, or even a tape backup drive, you will still be OK. If, like my colleague, you use a notebook, you might need a Laplink cable and Laplink software (PCAnywhere from Symantec will do a great job as well) and another PC or another notebook with some space on its hard disk.

Or, you can set up your Windows for a direct cable connection and copy the files. If you do not have the cable but both your notebook and the other notebook have an infra-red port, you can transfer the files to create a backup copy using infra-red connection.

If none of these options is available to you, you may hook up to the Internet and register at those Web sites that offer free storage space. One of them is www.xdrive.com, which will allow you to store up to 25 MB of data on their site without any charge. Another is http://instal.backup.com, which will give you a 30-day free trial period. Unfortunately, if you only have a phone line connection to your ISP, this would not be a cost- effective alternative, because backing up even the zipped file can take forever.

What is the last alternative that you can use? Depending on the size of the zipped file, you can use several 3.5" diskettes. It will surely take a lot of time, but this is the last resort.

Copy the files

If you are backing up the files to another disk or another PC using a network connection, you can use Windows Explorer and use drag and drop to copy the files from their original folder into the backup folder on the other hard disk.

What to do if the only option left is the 3.5" diskettes and the zipped file contains more than 10 MB of ones and zeros? You can use Windows 95 or 98 Backup utility. This utility lets you copy a large file into a set of diskettes -- it will ask you to insert another disk each time one is already full. Click on Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools and then on Backup.

Never forget that you need to backup your Address Book as well. The easiest way of doing this is to simply copy the file in C:WindowsApplication DataMicrosoftAddress Book named USERMPS.WAB into a diskette.

Once you have created a backup copy of all the files in the mail folder -- and a backup copy of all the other important data files, of course -- you can proceed with reformatting your hard disk and reinstalling all your applications. Next you will have to restore the zipped file into a temporary folder and unzip it.

The next thing to do is to import all the .DBX files into your newly installed OE5, or MBX and IDX into the reinstalled OE4. Click on File, Import, and Messages. Select Microsoft Outlook Express 5 if you used OE5 before, or Outlook Express 4 if you are migrating from OE4. Then click on the Next button. In the next dialog box, select Import mail from an OE5 store directory. After you click on Next, OE5 will ask you to specify the store folder to import from. Click on Browse and go to the temporary folder where the backup files have been copied into. Click on OK and then Next. OE5 will ask you to select which of the folders you want to import into. Just select All folders.

Next, import the Address Book from the diskette, and you are done.

JP/How to backup your e-mail messages