Thanks for the replies :)

I didn't interrupt the compacting although i have in the past - it seems
insane doing so is so destructive yet there is no warning not to do so, or a
standard "do you want to compact now" type message. Especially considering
it takes up 100% CPU and the likelihood is that many would try to stop it in
order to continue what they were doing. We all know Microsoft are useless
but on this...?!!!

I've searched the whole drive for a dbt file (thats searching including the
hidden files) and nothing comes up ... if the deleted files from my sent
folder got cached somewhere, what would the file be called?

I tried using DBXtract on the Sent folder but it didnt recovered any of the
messages that were lost (unless there is something i'm not doing right?)

I'm running XP SP2 btw.

Any other ideas? Its odd, i have all of my sent mail up until the end of
January 2005 and then everything from Feb 1st through to the day it happened
has just vanished completely. Would file corruption be so exacting?

Thanks

J