Emergency data recovery

There was a thread a couple of days ago about lost data. The
question arises of how to reconstruct messages from a
Mail.MSMessageStore backup file, which WLMail knows how to use but I
don't. Does anyone? I don't have a spare installation to run tests
on...
--
Noel

I don't expect that the Mail.MSMessageStore actually contains any more
than some of the message headers. The actual messages are in the EML
files.

And I don't expect that the backup Mail.MSMessageStore is intended to be
manually restored.

As I recall, before I went live with WLM I did some playing around.
Deleting/renaming the Mail.MSMessageStore resulted in WLM rebuilding it.
I'm guessing that it used the backup version plus the logs.

But, as long as you've got the EML files backed up, or still available,
you can import those. You would lose some meta information such as
read/unread, replied to and account that sent/received the message but
the actual message will still be there.

--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm



"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:#Hvb7HS0IHA.2068@xxxxxx

Hello,

What is the EML and how do I restore a message from it?

Nissi1

"Michael Santovec" wrote:

The files with names ending in .eml are the messages, but often
don't contain all the information about what has happened to
the messages since they arrived (for example, whether you have
read them).

"Nissi1" <Nissi1@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:66FDC834-52C0-4AAE-8591-DB5CF40C5369@xxxxxx

Thank you.

Nissi1

"robertmiles@xxxxxx" wrote:

You're welcome.

"Nissi1" <Nissi1@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0F0CEA84-68DC-4E0B-95C9-A330DBF09C58@xxxxxx

To restore an EML file, you can drag it from Windows Explorer into the
message list area of the desired folder in WLM. You can drag multiple
messages at a time.

You can also double click an EML file and then select File, Copy to
Folder.


--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm



"Nissi1" <Nissi1@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:66FDC834-52C0-4AAE-8591-DB5CF40C5369@xxxxxx

Michael is correct Noel.

Since the database for WLMail and WMail does not contain the messages, it only references their meta-data and indexes their location.

Additionally, the Extensible Storage Engine (ESENT or ESE, the same Exchange uses) keeps a backup of all transactions (initially through log files). Whilst the full backup of the database is deleted during database compaction, it is recreated shortly afterward and periodically updated.

If the database is corrupted, WLMail first tries to restore it from the backup. Often though, new messages have been received since the database was backed up. Such messages don't have entries in the database and are therefore 'recovered' during the restoration of the database.

Thus, manually replacing the database with an older version will likely cause the 'recovery' of all non-indexed messages. However, messages that were previously indexed but no longer exist (since deleted), may remain referenced in the database, and so appear in WLMail's message list. Such non-existent messages will obviously produce an error when one attempts to open them from the message list.

A very detailed explanation of the ESE database can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Storage_Engine
and
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...68(VS.85).aspx

ESENT provides its own utility called Esentutl (see attached screenshot), that, whilst it cannot reconstruct deleted messages, can be used for certain database file management functions, namely defragmentation (compaction), recovery, integrity check, checksum, repair, file dump, and copy. Esentutl.exe is located in the Windows\System32 folder, but is run from an elevated command prompt.
Note: If there are spaces in the file *path*, you need to enclose the file path in quotation marks ("")
Examples:

To test the integrity of the database:

Vista: esentutl /g "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Mail.MSMessageStore"
XP: esentutl /g "%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Mail.MSMessageStore"

Whilst Esentutl can be useful, and interesting to experiment with, I don't recommend using it to compact WLMail's database, as it is much safer to do it through WLMail itself.

--
Cheers,
Peter.R
(Windows Vista Home Premium with Windows Live Mail 12.0.1606)
"There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Shakespeare
---------------

"Michael Santovec" <michael_santovec@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:eQlhm$W0IHA.3504@xxxxxx

Of course he is, and I feel a bit foolish. I'd just noticed how big
my MessageStore file had got (250MB) and assumed it had to contain
more than just an index and some headers. So I just checked to see
how big the Store Folder itself was, and it's several GB.

Thanks for the info about ESE. I do wish it didn't clutter up Event
Viewer with all its routine announcements; what with that and SQL
Server (even worse in this respect), there's hardly room for events
that I might conceivably be interested in.

Good to have you back - we've missed you!
--
Noel

"Peter.R" <Peter.R@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OTgHKCd2IHA.1768@xxxxxx