Changed from Vista to Windows 7 and lost all my Windows Live mail.

[Micar]

I recently had my slow laptop cleaned in order to improve performance. The guy deleted my Windows Live Mail folders and lots of other things(mostly unused anyway). He replaced Vista with Windows 7 Home Premium. Now I have lost all my mail. I am now using Windows Live Mail 2012 but can only see the most recent mails. Can I retrieve the previous mails and folders? http://www.sevenforums.com/images/smilies/cry.gif

 

[whs]

If he installed W7 on top of your Vista, then your mail is gone unless you have a recent image of your Vista system on an external drive.

That is one reason why I use AOL since the dawn of time - and I never lost a single mail because they are all stored upstream at AOL. I can go back to my first mail from day 1 on AOL. And I use AOL via the browser - not with their heavy app. And this way I can get at my mail from any PC, my Android tablet or my phone.

 

[Micar]

Many thanks for the quick reply whs. I will go tomorrow and have a word in this guy's eyebrow.

 

[DavidE]

Have you logged into your email provider's web email?
Depending on the provider and how everything is setup, emails may still be there.

 

[Slartybart]

If your mail is not still on the server as DavidE suggested, you might be able to recover the eMail with Recuva.
https://www.piriform.com/recuva/download

I always download form the publisher site (Prirform.com)
Watch for cross marketing added software during the install (toolbars or a browser)
-> remove the tick mark from the checkbox for anything offered as an extra
-> you only want to install Recuva

Also watch for offers from the publisher for a free trial or upgrade to the full package
-> you only want the free version (not a free trial of the full package)

Read the documentation
https://www.piriform.com/docs/recuva/introducing-recuva

Recuva is fairly powerful and easy to use. It can be configured to selectively search for missing files, in your case eMail.
If you don't configure Recuva with a search filter, it will find everything it can. The you have to filter it by hand - let the program do that for you.

Recovery software isn't perfect, it often changes filenames. Don't expect it to fix WLM - there would be an extra step to get the files Recuva finds back into WLM.

Before I write a long explanation. See if you can download the messages from the server - that is the easiest.

Bill
.

 

[Slartybart]

Many thanks for the quick reply whs. I will go tomorrow and have a word in this guy's eyebrow.

Your data is your responsibility. Many people are shocked to learn that the repair shop overwrote their data. I suppose the shops should ask first, but many don't - they wrongly assume that most people have a backup.

There are a lot of talented people around here - until you determine that data recovery is the only way left, try not to write anything to the drive. Better yet, turn the box off until you're ready to try the recovery.

How then can you check to see if mail is on the Server? A friend or the library or another device would do the trick.

The more you or the system writes to the disk, the less successful data recovery becomes - old files are still there, but as things get written to the disk, pieces of those files are destroyed.

Bill
.

 

[Micar]

To all who tried to help me, many thanks. This is a lost cause. All avenues have been explored. Thanks again.