Mac Forum / Applications / Outlook Express / November 2007

I need help in a bad way!!!!   I have been having problems with Outlook
Express for quite sometime and I have seen in this website that others are as
well.  Last night I had the same issue to where I needed to shut it down and
log back on in order for it work, however this time when logging back on
almost all new unread messages were gone!!!  I know that at least 25 new
messages were deleted and I can't figure out what happened.  I have 2
identities on my computer and occasionally when switching between them I
would get a message asking me if I wanted to compact messages and I would say
NO because I wasn't sure what that would do and since there were problems I
didn't want to create a new one.  This may have nothing to do with this
immediate problem, but I have a folder named NEW Folder and it appears that a
ton of email stuff is there and they are shown as bak and dbx files, which I
am not able to open.  Sorry, for rambling, but I am beyond frustration at
this point and trying to get from Dell was like going on a field trip in
India, with NO translator!  Thanks to anyone that can help me.