Great News here if you ever "lost" important, "saved to Hard Drive" AOL e-mails over the years!!!

[Up2Late]

I know I did. I'm pretty sure it was when I Upgraded my OS from Windows95 to Windows98se back in 1999.

When I finished that ordeal, I found I also had to re-install my AOL software (ver. 5.0, btw) too. When that was done, I found ALL of the e-mail files that I had "saved to Hard Drive" were nowhere to be found, including some that I hadn't even looked through yet.

WELL, after EIGHT (8) YEARS of searching, and a little luck yesterday, I finally found and ultimately RESTORED those lost email! More on how in a minute, but first...(if you really don't care about the "Why?" and just want to get to the "How?", you can just skip to the bottom paragraph where you see this little guy for the instructions).

If you think back, this was back when most AOL Members were getting buried in a new type of unwanted message that we now know as SPAM, so I had begun just downloading all of my AOL e-mail and then sorting out the SPAM and Junk "Off-line" so as to not use up all my "25 Free Hours" (or what ever the offer was back then). It was also in the middle of the long process of switching to regular, non-AOL e-mail, by individually telling my friends and family my new, but much harder to remember, email address. As you probably guessed, some of my Friends were still sending me e-mail to AOL, where it would get mixed in with dozens of SPAM messages for Porn Sites and "Male Enhancement" offers, etc., so just the downloading an sorting took a lot of time I didn't have, as I had just bought a "fixer-upper" house that was keeping me very busy.

So what was so important that would make me want to restore these old e-mail messages now? That's a fair question, so here's the deal. I had almost forgotten about these old e-mails, but when my Best Friend died suddenly in July 2006, It made me realized how much of our e-mail correspondence between us had been lost, when I couldn't find most of the old messages I thought I had filed.

It also really bugged me that his "official cause of Death" that his Sister and Family gave, never really made much sense. I also realized that his Sister, who he had lived apart from for 17 years, knew much less about him than she thought she did, because the Brother she has been talking to me about, in our recent e-mails, sounds like a completely different person and not at all the Friend I knew for 32 years.

I'm not sure who confused his true cause of death yet (the Doctor mis-representing his real cause of death, or the families mis-understanding or downplaying it for numerous reasons, I need to ask a few more questions first, I'll keep anyone interested posted when I find out), but I'm pretty sure he died due to an accidental overdose of a combo of Tylenol and Alcohol, something not as uncommon as you might think, though it always seems to get buried in the back of most Newspapers. My other friend, who's e-mails make up most of the rest of these "lost" e-mail," died from a self-inflicted gun-shot wound in 2001, so I may need to go back though those too.

You can read more about the confusion in my DU Journal Archive at this link if you are interested: <http://journals.democraticunderground.com/?az=archives&j=309&page=1>

The posts are from July and August, 2006.


Anyway, here's a link to how to find and recover the "lost" e-mail:

<http://email.about.com/od/aoltips/qt/et042206.htm>

But FIRST, a word of CAUTION!

If you already have e-mail saved in the AOL "File Cabinet" on the computer that you are about to do this on, STOP NOW and either Print out those e-mail, copy them to a text (txt) or *doc or *wri file FIRST! Or if you still can, forward them to yourself, just DO NOT check your email until you are done with this! If you don't do that first, you might lose your current "File Cabinet" files doing this, I'm not sure, but better safe than sorry.

How to Recover Mail and Other AOL Data from a "Saved on My PC" Backup

From Heinz Tschabitscher,
Your Guide to Email.
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!

So you want to move your AOL data to a new computer, even when AOL is no longer working on the old? So you want to recover from a backup copy of your Saved on My PC files after a hard disk crash?

It's easy. In a matter of copying a few files, you will be up, running and AOL-ing again.
Recover Mail and Other AOL Data from a "Saved on My PC" Backup

To recover mail and other AOL data from a Saved on My PC backup:

* Log on to AOL with your screen name at least once.
* Make sure AOL is not currently running.
* Search your computer for a file called "(your AOL screen name).abi".
o If your screen name is "myscreenname", for example, search for a file called "myscreenname.abi".
o You should find it in a folder called organize. A typical location is "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\AOL\C_America Online 9.0\organize". You can go to this folder directly, too.
* Go up one directory, to the C_America Online 9.0 folder.
o For other versions of AOL, the folder name may be different. In any case, go up one directory from the organize folder.
* Rename the organize folder "organize.save".
* Go up another directory.
* Open the folder containing the backup copy of your old organize folder in a new Explorer window.
* Highlight the backup organize folder.
* Press Ctrl-C.
* Switch to the AOL folder window.
* Highlight C-America Online 9.0 or whatever the folder containing the organize.save folder is called on your system.
* Press Ctrl-V.
* Log on to AOL.
* If everything is back in place, delete the organize.save folder.

(links to more info at this link, but that's basically it!)<http://email.about.com/od/aoltips/qt/et042206.htm>

Now, if the email you just recovered is very old, like mine were (from 1998-1999), you probably can't just forward it to yourself anymore. What I did (and am still doing) is open one of these old e-mail. Then "Select ALL" (Ctrl+A) and then "Copy" (Ctrl+C), and then "Paste" (Ctrl+V) into a "New Message" e-mail window.

Then I send it to myself.

That way, I can re-download these old messages and print them or forward them or whatever. It also makes it so that you still have the original date and addresses on the old messages that you pasted in.

ALSO, If you think you have any "sensitive information" that might interest the FBI or your soon to be Ex-Wife or Ex-Husband in some of the "lost" AOL e-mail on your computer, you might want to use the info above to recover, then delete that info too, or just find the old "organize" folders (I have about 7-10 of them) and just delete them straight away.

Any questions?

[kestrel91316]

1. Will this work if I had to reformat my hard drive when this PC was only

4 months old????????

I failed to save every last email and file prior to the reformatting, which I knew I had to do because of corrupted files.

[Up2Late]

2. Did you make any "Back-up" disks or tapes, which included the AOL software...

...or sign-into AOL on any other computer (like at work) before reformatting the disk?

If so, yes, it would probably work.

If not, sorry, it's probably not going to help you.

[kestrel91316]

5. I have not reinstalled my AOL disk because I believe that software may have

had something to do with my original problem. The computer runs MUCH better without AOL installed. I just use their free email only now - but my saved email thing was empty (I saved mail to my computer rather than AOL). Oh, well.........

[nebenaube]

3. It should since that's what he had to do to upgrade to 98se n/t

[Up2Late]

4. Oh well, I think I'll repost this in the Computer Support Group, I guess I'm one the few...

...who's had this problem, or maybe one of the last to figure it out.:shrug:

Anyway. :kick:

[Atman]

6. Wouldn't it be easier just to call the NSA?

I'm sure they have a copy of all of 'em.

:hi:

.

[truebrit71]

7. ROFL!!!

:rofl:

[Up2Late]

8. That would take to long, too much Red Tape and...

...then there is the whole "Anal Probe" thing...

It just didn't seem worth it.