[quote user="drtlc"]The only thing I can figure is that the PMI files didn't come over and when it went to process the folder, it deleted everything since the crash.[/quote]

Did you try re-indexing the folder? 

Hi All,

My wife, a professor, has been happily using Pegasus Mail for years now.  Recently however, something very bad has been happening to her e-mails.  We had a system crash (lightning related) back in mid-May.  I had to buy a new PC (completely fried one hard drive and the IDE controller, and scrambled the boot sector of the second drive).  I installed PMail on the new machine (under Windows Vista... had been W2k) and was able to recover the mail files from the partially scrambled drive.  Everything was fine until a couple of days ago.  Suddenly, when she tried to move a file from one folder to another, it caused all of the mail in the source folder since the recovery to disappear.  All of the earlier mail remained in the folder.  An error popped up saying that there had been a problem and to undelete the folder (specifically, the PMM file).  The problem is, the PMM file was still there, just everything since the new installation was gone.  I also noticed that there are no PMI files to go with the PMM files although they are still there on the old drive and I assume were properly moved when I installed PMail on the new machine.  Any ideas on what's going on, how to fix it, and, most importantly, if I can retrieve the "lost" mail?

Thanks in advance...

Tim

[quote user="drtlc"]All of the earlier mail remained in the folder.  An error popped up saying that there had been a problem and to undelete the folder (specifically, the PMM file).  The problem is, the PMM file was still there, just everything since the new installation was gone.  I also noticed that there are no PMI files to go with the PMM files although they are still there on the old drive and I assume were properly moved when I installed PMail on the new machine.  Any ideas on what's going on, how to fix it, and, most importantly, if I can retrieve the "lost" mail?[/quote]

I'm not an expert on the program, unlike some here, but as there's no reply yet, here's what I'd try. I tested what I'm about to suggest, and it works fine for me. 

What I think I'd do is make a totally new install and avoid, on the whole, moving files or directories across wholesale in case they've been damaged. In the program GUI I'd create a new folder and call it, say "Old".  Pegasus will create a new .PMM and a new .PMI file to go with that. If you run a search on *.PMM, you'll see them. It seems to give a (random?) number to them. When I created "Old" in the GUI, I got FOl05826.PMM and FOl05826.PMI in Pegasus's support folder. With me these were in MAIL\ADMIN but that would vary with set up.

Next, I'd take the PMM file of the old machine and rename it to the name Pegasus has allocated to the new "Old" mailfolder (FOl05826.PMM in my case). With the program closed I'd drop that into the relevant directory where it would over-write the empty "Old" file I'd just made in the program GUI.

Finally, I'd re-open the program, right-click on the mailfolder "Old", and  choose "Reindex folder".

This solution might be long-winded if you had several mailfolders to bring over, but it seems a pretty safe way to proceed to me and doesn't involve re-using old, and possibly damaged, files for new content.  Once you can see the old mails in the GUI, assuming you can, you can move them individually by drag-and-drop to different mailfolders if you wish.

[quote user="drtlc"]

Hi All,

My wife, a professor, has been happily using Pegasus Mail for years now.  Recently however, something very bad has been happening to her e-mails.  We had a system crash (lightning related) back in mid-May.  I had to buy a new PC (completely fried one hard drive and the IDE controller, and scrambled the boot sector of the second drive).  I installed PMail on the new machine (under Windows Vista... had been W2k) and was able to recover the mail files from the partially scrambled drive.  Everything was fine until a couple of days ago.  Suddenly, when she tried to move a file from one folder to another, it caused all of the mail in the source folder since the recovery to disappear.  All of the earlier mail remained in the folder.  An error popped up saying that there had been a problem and to undelete the folder (specifically, the PMM file).  The problem is, the PMM file was still there, just everything since the new installation was gone.  I also noticed that there are no PMI files to go with the PMM files although they are still there on the old drive and I assume were properly moved when I installed PMail on the new machine.  Any ideas on what's going on, how to fix it, and, most importantly, if I can retrieve the "lost" mail?

Thanks in advance...

Tim

[/quote]

The first thing that comes to mind is that your virus scanner is scanning the files in the mail directory and came up with what it thought was a virus and blew away the whole folder when it could not "fix" the message in the folder.   Is this a possibility? 

I don't think this is a virus scanner issue.  The folders still exist, it's just that everything since the recovery disappears when she moves anything out of the folder.

It's gotten even weirder though.  Now I can't even locate any PMM files with a date later than that of the crash (17 May).  She was using the program regularly, going in and out of it, without any apparent problems.  However when she moved an e-mail from one folder to another, it would give the message that it was compressing the folder and afterward, everything since the crash was missing.  The only thing I can figure is that the PMI files didn't come over and when it went to process the folder, it deleted everything since the crash.  I don't undestand however, if it was related to the missing PMI file, why it didn't delete everything?

Is there a temporary file type or location somewhere that may either have the missing e-mails or be storing them temporarily?

Thanks for ANY help.

 -Tim