help!! retreving lost aol emails - Page 2

[Pegasus11768]

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?

I just downloaded aol9.1 and the same thing happend to me. I spent an hour on the phone with an aol tech rep and we could not retrieve my 2100 saved emails to my PC file cabinet.
I did a resore and got back to my previous aol optmised but no saved emails!!! I had a back up of by C drive and restored the aol from that hard drive but no emails. I found the organize file and there is my file but how do I open it. This is crazy. The aol tech said this is happening in the thousands. Does anybody know what program will open this file???

[californiatogo]

Thanks for your thread. I finally looked online and found Hot Pepper Tech. and paid the money to retrieve my lost email. David was very helpful and spent a lot of time on the phone with me walking me through the process. I did have it happen again at a later date and believe I lost the original recovered email. David helped again. He used to work for AOL so is very well acquainted with the system. I believe the problem lies with the AOL system and I haven't figured out a way to really fix it yet.

Good luck! I was happy to retrieve my emails the first time around even though they were in a strange format. I wish now that I had printed them all out since I haven't been able to find them again on my computer. I'm not even sure they're still here.

Nancy

[Pegasus11768]

Thank you. This has been a very frustrating experience. It is inconcievable that AOL would put out a product which causes this type of problem. I have been reluctant to leave AOL because of the hassle associated with learning a new software application and contacting suppliers & friends with a new email address. Well, this experience has taught me a vauable lesson. I am going to dump AOL and move on...
Again, thank you for your responce. I have little enough hair left and this experience has cost me dearly.
Dennis Tannenbaum
Northport, N.Y..

[josephine123]

Hi guys,

sorry to continue this rather old thread. But I have exactly the same problems as stated here. I have lost all my emails and I am quite desperate. I have worked through all of your comments, unfortunately nothing worked.
I have now a copy of my last pfc file from the organize folder from AOL 9.0 which is rather large but shows only 2 emails as soon as I open it with the AOL software.

Has anyone found any solution to the problem? What about the software which can be purchased for 25$? Does it help/work with 'corrupted' pfc-files?
I would appreciate any reply, I am desperate to get my emails back...

Thank U!

[josephine123]

Just checking back, but unfortunately no one has been here :-(

Still no solution for me and my emails...

[rcanne6796]

This is what I did and I was able to acess my old filing cabinet.I saved the file that has no extension from my organize folder to the desktop(I could see the file is large & still has my info on it).
Without deleting aol 9.1 I upgraded to aol 9.5 I tried copying the file with no extension/organize folder to the aol 9.5 but this did not work.
What I did notice was I went back to my aol 9.1 organize folder and the file with no extension was gone(moved to aol 9.5 on installation perhaps?) So I moved the file with no extension to the aol 9.1 organize folder from the desktop and launched aol 9.1 and my files are back.
Still havent figured out how to get it to aol 9.5 but at least I now have acess to them.
I hope this helps others!!

[rcanne6796]

Heres an update from my last post.I unloaded the new aol 9.5 & reinstalled it thinking it might transfer the pc cabinet over from 9.1 but I did not so when I tried to transfer the file with no extension from 9.1 to 9.5 it told me the file was too big.
Sure enough I check c properties and I was out of disk space.I got rid of some old programs made space & I now have my pc cabinet on aol9.5

[josephine123]

Hi,

I am glad to hear that you got your emails back. Did you have the same/a similar problem to mine:
I have AOL 9 and suddenly my emails from before 12/17/08 do not show any more. I simply opened the software and had only two from orginally a loooot more emails left. I could not believe it and was/am very upset, because there were some emails in there which were very dear to me.
Having researched a lot about the probelm I managed to save the large pfc file with my screenname (the one without any extension). It is big so I assume the data must still be there. When I open the file with a text editor programme there is a lot of jiberrisch and inbetween it says: this message was saved by a newer version of this software or something. Other users in this thread have reported the same problem.

I have tried everyhting I could so far but nothing helped, my emails wont come back. All emails prior to 12/17/08 are gone.

Was your problem any similar?

Bye, and thanks for your reply
Jo

[rcanne6796]

Hi,

I am glad to hear that you got your emails back. Did you have the same/a similar problem to mine:
I have AOL 9 and suddenly my emails from before 12/17/08 do not show any more. I simply opened the software and had only two from orginally a loooot more emails left. I could not believe it and was/am very upset, because there were some emails in there which were very dear to me.
Having researched a lot about the probelm I managed to save the large pfc file with my screenname (the one without any extension). It is big so I assume the data must still be there. When I open the file with a text editor programme there is a lot of jiberrisch and inbetween it says: this message was saved by a newer version of this software or something. Other users in this thread have reported the same problem.

I have tried everyhting I could so far but nothing helped, my emails wont come back. All emails prior to 12/17/08 are gone.

Was your problem any similar?

Bye, and thanks for your reply
Jo

Yes but I did not have any emails left in my filing cabinet.I could see that my pfc file with my screenname (no extension) was large so I figured it was trapped in there .I after juggling files & trying on a different Pc i decidided to try installing the new AOL and that was the key read my 2 posts on Daniweb & it says how I did it.I have a business & thats where I pu my quotes etc & I needed that info!
Best of luck & there is hope!

[Gjuan949]

Well this really sucks!!! i really needed all my old emails. if someone finds a solution please report it to this thread. thanx

[vseven]

I've been going through this for 6+ hours now. What it appears happened was the local mail file had become corrupt and what's even worse is it looks like my backup copy was also corrupt. For a week or so the "Mail waiting to be sent" folder was empty but the old mail and sent mail was fine. So I followed the instructions to "Restore" the mail file (which is a bit over 1 gig...). The restore ran for about 45 seconds and popped up a error message and all three folders disappeared. I restarted AOL and get a "File cannot be opened. AOL will attempt to restore the file." but it doesn't do anything and the "Mail on my PC" folder group was grayed out. So I renamed the file from my screen name to my screen name .old and AOL started up but of course the folders were empty.

I purchased the ePreserver program for $25 and ran it only to have it tell me the file was corrupt and I need to buy ePreserver Recovery (for $150....ugh). So I went back to their site and downloaded the demo of the recovery program just to see if it would work and it gave a bunch of error messages then said it found 35 email, which is no where close to the 1000+ I had in there. Maybe the software will work for you guys but it seems my mail file is too far gone. I've requested a refund from the company since the software is of no use to me, hopefully they will return the $25 without a huge hassle.

So for future reference c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\c_americaonline_xx\organize\YourScreenName is the file with your offline mail.....make a backup if you haven't recently. Or just backup the entire folder and copy it back when there is a problem or your moving computers. Or even better stop using AOL.

-Allan

[Netengine73]

the problem is that AOL integrates with Outlook and does not throw the switch to leave the messages on the server. The messages are downloaded to Outlook and removed from AOL. The real question is how do you put them back in AOL from Outlook?

[conniecoolest]

I was sitting at my computer and watched mine disappear right before my very eyes. Since I don't subscribe to AOL I could not locate a number or file that could help me. I have some valueable things saved that I needed to use and they are all gone. I don't sdave them to my laptop but to the bdesktop which is not set up since I am in the middle of moving. I can only hope they might still be on there! At least some of them. Anyone figure out how to find them yet? I would be very grateful.

Yep, I have no doubt the data is still there. How to retrieve it is the question. If you have anything more to add, please do! I attempted everything you did, including upgrading to AOL 9.0 VR with no luck. Hopefully, the data has not been corrupted and is retrievable. The question at this point is HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?

My "AOL Saved PFC" folder saved as an icon on Windows reads 42.5 MB in size. When I enter it by double clicking and then double click the "organize" folder, the file (username) without an extension states 41,234 KB. I'm assuming that is where the saved emails are located.

Hopefully, someone can discover a simple solution to restoring the data as opposed to shelling out big bucks to retreive it using expensive software.

Scipio

Help! I've spent hours on this so far. I have both AOL 9.1 and 9.5 installed currently. I upgraded to 9.5 because 9.1 was corrupted, was giving garbled pages on google searches. I backed up my PFC cabinet (I save files on my PC, not on AOL server). When I logged in to 9.5, I couldn't see the folders, of which I have many. I went through several methods of retrieving them. The one where you go into the Data Folder and try to paste the screen name (with no extension after the file name) into the Organize folder. I get this error message: "Cannot copy (screen name), it is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again." But I have no other program open. Also tried the method of going offline and clicking on Mail - Mail Settings - Managed Saved Mail - Restore, which does not work either. I know the file is there, it is 513mb. I've tried accessing it in 9.5, and re-installed 9.1 and cannot access it there either. Why in the world must we buy another program like epreserver to access these files? (I know, I really need to move on from AOL) Or do I have a different problem, as in the WIndows error message I got? thanks to anyone who can cure this headache.

[bobbyjo]

i had this problem a few years ago and discovered that it's to do with aol's server. when you download an email etc it stays on their server and every once in a while they decide to clear down their server files and lo behold, everyone loses their email files. I was furious at this and lost important emails. As a result of this I moved to another service provider and will never use AOL again!!

[jackdurso]

My name is Jack a couple of days ago almost 1000 of my aol email completely dissapeared. I do not remember deleating them. There are a lot of these e mail that I need. I did not back any of these. I have a Dell Desktop Espiron 3000.
I need assistance in retrieving these emails.

[bobmcamis]

How can I recover my new e-mail?

[jantanik]

Has anyone figured out a solution to this problem as yet, I am currently having the same problem. I had lost many important mails finally I decided that the best way is to switch to another service providers.

[sandradiaz]

Hello Everyone, I had the same problem in AOL 9.5 but now I use AOL Backup Tool to create backup of AOL Email at my Desktop. It is really amazing tool for creating backup of AOL data at your machine and this is really helpful for future.