windows mail importing blank messages from backup

im currently in the process of re-installing after a format and trying to restore my back-ups but i seem to be having a problem importing my messages. i followed the tutorial pretty much to the letter and it told me the messages were imported successfully but when i try to view them there is no subject, no sender or any other info. it seems it just importing blank messages. when you look in the backed up folders you can see that each has a different file size so im pretty sure the info is there but its not showing up. windows mail is also set to delete the messages from the server after download. i have a few pretty old emails that would have been deleted from the server by now anyway. anyone know of a fix to try?