Originally Posted by Binary01

I have had exactly the same thing happen. I am on aol 9.0 and have not upgraded or installed any software at all recently. Yesterday I had my 1000 odd emails on my PC and today they have vanished, leaving only 2 in my incoming mail saved on pc. Tech support were very nice but are now saying they think they are lost. Of course we know computers don't really erase things, they just lose the pointers to them.

Have you been through the hoops of looking for your old PFC file? It should just be your username (no extension) - mine was in c\docs & settings\all users\appn data\aol\c_aol 9.0\organize. You can find the location by Start, Progs, aol, aol syst info, WAOL tab - and under Data Folder you will find the location.

The support guy told me to delete all other files with extensions (things like .abi, .aby) with my screen name but under no circumstances to delete the one with just my screen name no extn. He then got me to copy the screenname only one to my desktop. Then I renamed it on the desktop to screenname.pfc. Then I signed on to aol. Then clicked (in aol) file, open, desktop then on the file with screenname.pfc, and clicked open. I browsed down and there, sadly, were NOT all my old emails, just the remaining 2 I could see already. Aaargh.

When I booted up my PC today, there was a Norton message, something about email but I didn't read it properly. I don't know if Norton thinks it identified a threat and somehow corrupted/wiped the file. I know it's still on the PC but guess I will need to take the pc to a specialist to try and retrieve the lost data.

I notice that no one else replied to this thread in over 3 months... but if anyone has any suggestions, would be very grateful!!

Originally Posted by bssuthar

Similar thing happened to me too. Aol 9.0. Suddenly all of my saved email on my pc disappeared. I looked at the organize folder and my screenname (without extension) was there and was over 125 megs. Obviously , the data was still in there. I tried to copy the file and replace it into another organize folder onto another pc running aol and this didn't work. I tried to do the same with the backup folder without success. I upgraqded to aol 9.0 VR without success and I restored windows to an earlier date without help. I restored the pfc file through aol and this didn't work. My file is still there and its huge but no way to access it. Does anyone have a solution? I am willing to pay top dollar and take the laptop to forensics but I (a newbee) don't know any around here. Any suggestions?

Originally Posted by bssuthar

Similar thing happened to me too. Aol 9.0. Suddenly all of my saved email on my pc disappeared. I looked at the organize folder and my screenname (without extension) was there and was over 125 megs. Obviously , the data was still in there. I tried to copy the file and replace it into another organize folder onto another pc running aol and this didn't work. I tried to do the same with the backup folder without success. I upgraqded to aol 9.0 VR without success and I restored windows to an earlier date without help. I restored the pfc file through aol and this didn't work. My file is still there and its huge but no way to access it. Does anyone have a solution? I am willing to pay top dollar and take the laptop to forensics but I (a newbee) don't know any around here. Any suggestions?

Originally Posted by Htlebmn

I find it funny that we all had the same problem at the same time..a few days back i received an update for connectivity software from aol..Afterward i was unable to see any mail in my incoming mail file (sent mail and all other screenames are fine)...Weird