Retriving emails from broken Vista

I am presently in a temporary profile in Vista owing to (presumably) a corrupt start up configuration. I've tried re-booting, using Startup Repair from the Vista CD, but all to no avail, I keep ending up in a temporary profile. My installation of Windows is sick once more, and it appears my only option is to perform a clean re-install.

Thankfully I have backups of anything vital, but I couldn't back up my emails for the last ten days owing to Vista's Backup utility never having worked since it was last re-installed. I had hoped to fix this problem eventually especially as in most other respects, the operating system was working OK. For the first time since I bought my copy of Vista a month ago, I was actually beginning to relax and enjoy using my computer again. However, a tiny problem with a file transfer to my iPod started a freeze, to which I had to respond by switching off at the mains & rebooting. Ever since then, things went from bad to worse with each reboot. (Why does Vista 'freeze' so often anyway?)

So, does anyone know where Vista's email files are stored, so if they are still there, I can back them up manually?

Are you using the standard Windows Mail for your email or have you installed office 2007 etc or something like that

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I am using Windows Mail, in line with my policy of keeping everything as standard as possible. When you are having as many problems as I'm having, you need unnecessary complexity like a hole in the head.

Trouble is, things have moved from bad to worse since my last post. The repeated attempts at repairing the startup seem to have damaged the 500gb SATA hard drive on which Vista was installed on one of its three partitions. The 500gb drive is now no longer recognised by the Vista install CD, making it impossible to repair the installation or even to completely re-install Vista on that drive.

I have had to re-install Vista on a separate physical hard drive on another (IDE) channel. This has gone well, touch wood, possibly because I recall that my Vista problems always began after I had downloaded the 'vital' updates from the Microsoft update site. This time, I haven't updated the Vista files and all seems to be well.

However, when I look in Windows Explorer from my new installation of Vista, the former hard drive appears as an unformatted volume of indeterminate size. When I click on it I am informed that it requires formatting (I wonder why? It was already formatted in NTFS format on all three partitions.); but of course I do not want to attempt any formatting because there could still be the files I wish to retrieve, on that drive.

Has the boot sector on that 500gb drive got corrupted? I wonder. Is it recoverable or do I need to buy another 500gb drive to replace it?

All this moither started when Vista, for no reason that I could determine, suddenly froze while I was copying a file. This is not stable software by anyone's reckoning!

It does sound like you drive is complety trashed, the only way to get your data back would be to try some kind of data recovery tool but these normally arent free and dont always get your files back

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Thank you again Tech-Master,

The hard drive is trashed. I've used one downloaded and one paid-for disc utilities in both Windows and Dos environments, all to no avail. Vista cannot 'see' the 500GB hard drive as anything more than 127GB.

The hard disk suppliers have offered to swap the disk for another, but I have declined because the hard drive was operating well at the beginning. It is trashed now due to Vista's tendency to fall over every time a cloud passes in the sky. It is not right to expect a replacement, when there was nothing wrong with the original disc. I will just have to buy another drive. Luckily they are cheaper now than they have ever been, only about £55 including vat for another 500GB SATA 2 drive.

Looking back I don't know what I can learn from this. When Vista freezes (as it frequently does) what can I do but switch off the PC and switch on again? If on one of these occasions Vista does not boot up from the hard drive, what else can I do but insert the installation disc in the CD drive and attempt bootup recovery from that? It is the repeated attempts at bootup recovery that, in my opinion, finally trashed the hard drive.

Even so, I would have thought that the hard disc utilities I employed, including Seagate's own disc utilities, would have managed to repair it, but they could not. I don't suppose you could suggest a suitable program that could attempt a repair? After all, no physical damage has been done, it must all be in software.

Thankfully no really vital information was lost, although there were some emails I would have liked to have saved. The moral of this story is writ large - make backups of everything, especially if you are using Vista.

I am writing this on my original XP machine. The Vista PC was built as a parallel project, hopefully to take over from my XP machine in due course. The way things are going, that day is looking like a long way into the future.

Thank you again for your support.

I'm sorry for the woes Vista seems to have caused you. I'm running a reconditioned Compaq laptop built for Vista and it works well. Intel Celeron M CPU 430 @ 1.73 GHz. Originally with 1GB ram but I upgraded to 2 GB. Graphics is a sickly (worse than the CPU) Mobile Intel 945 Express Chipset family. Manually installed the stand-alone SP1. A gamble, I know, as any incompatible driver would cause severe instability. Happened to work perfectly.

" The Vista PC was built as a parallel project"..., does this mean that you built the Vista PC yourself?
If so did you not research problems with drivers and hardware?
Even though my reconditioned laptop has puny specifications it was built by HP specifically for Vista. Whatever let the laptop down originally must have been hardware as after reconditioning it's a great second PC for browsing using Vista.

It might be that the problems lie through not buying a machine already dedicated to Vista by professionals.
No disrespect intended but a new OS should, in my thinking, only be used in a dedicated machine.
"Looking back I don't know what I can learn from this. When Vista freezes (as it frequently does) what can I do but switch off the PC and switch on again? If on one of these occasions Vista does not boot up from the hard drive, what else can I do but insert the installation disc in the CD drive and attempt bootup recovery from that? It is the repeated attempts at bootup recovery that, in my opinion, finally trashed the hard drive ".

""The hard disk suppliers have offered to swap the disk for another, but I have declined because the hard drive was operating well at the beginning. It is trashed now due to Vista's tendency to fall over every time a cloud passes in the sky. It is not right to expect a replacement, when there was nothing wrong with the original disc. I will just have to buy another drive. Luckily they are cheaper now than they have ever been, only about £55 including vat for another 500GB SATA 2 drive""

Again you fault the OS. Why not accept the suppliers generous offer of a replacement? Your returned harddrive could have helped the manufacurers find problems with drivers.
No doubt about it XP has a limited lifespan as Vista, so either you must research more to upgrade, or self build ,or turn to Linux.

Hello Fabler, nice to hear from you again.

I carefully read the issues you raised and you may be interested in the following points in response:-

I spent nearly a year researching the issues between Vista and hardware. In the dozens of magazines I read in that time, it was often stated how everything in the PC had to be geared to the needs of the new operating system. Accordingly when finally going shopping for components I bought a motherboard specially "Certified for Windows Vista" (it says so on the box), with similar designation applying to the graphics card and every last byte of code installed as software on the operating system.

I could hardly have researched the background any more than I did. It would have been difficult indeed to arrive at a list of components and software better matched to the needs of one piece of software. Even so I can accept that a PC made up from separate components can never be as 'tuned' to Vista, as a commercial system designed from the drawing board up. That point is well taken - I have learned something from this after all.

I could easily afford to buy a ready-made PC and I have done so a few times in the past. However, by building my own system I learn all the time from my mistakes, and I feel I am gaining a better insight into system building as a result. OK it is costing me money and it is sometimes disappointing to find things don't work out as I would wish, but isn't any worthwhile project like this?

The knowledge I have gained in fifteen years of patient endeavour has allowed me to help many with their computer problems. These people or organisations have often limited means and could not afford to call in 'certified professionals'. I charge nothing for my services and very often I find that the problem is simple to fix. This gets the elderly person, charity, educational establishment or whatever, back using their PC when otherwise they would have been denied its use.

So that is why I have been a reasonably regular visitor to this site. I have greatly appreciated the advice from yourself and Tech-Master. Despite its prima donna ways I still feel Vista is a good operating system at heart.and I hope you will continue to be as generous with your advice in the future as I persevere with getting my copy to work as it should.

It seems that you may be 'jinxed' with Vista! I admire your perseverance and know you'll get there in the end.
Like yourself I also help friends and family (or try to) with their PC problems and sometimes get rewarded with a cup of coffee...
Now that you'll start again with a new HDD the windows update problem has been resolved by Microsoft. The offending update had some PC's continuously rebooting from what I've read.
Good luck.