I forgot to mention I am going to try and reinstall Win98 over the current
windows to fix.

For some reference see:
Backing Up, Recovering and Restoring Outlook Express versions 5 & 6
Files and Settings
http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx
http://www.insideoe.com/backup/index.htm

Your messages are going to be in *.DBX files.  Your address book in a
*.WAB.  Those are the files that you want to save.

Your account settings, messages rules, etc. are in the registry.  You
can use this command

regedit     /e     REGSAVE.TXT

to export the registry to a text file.

Seeing as you can't boot to Windows, and seeing as you can't write to a CD
in DOS, and seeing as the DBX files that contain your messages are likely to
be larger than can be stored on a floppy, you'll need another HD to back up
the files. In fact, my recommendation would be to install a new drive and
install Windows to that, then retrieve all your personal files from the old
drive.

However, in answer to your question, here's how you collect your DBX files
(the files that contain the messages). We'll assume that you have another HD
installed and that it's seen as D:\:

At the C:\ prompt:

cd c:\windows\applic~1\identi~1
dir

Depending on how many Identities you have, that number of folders will be
displayed by the DIR command. Each one has a bracketed, long set of digits
for a name. Write them down, then create a folder on the new HD (D:\) for
each Identity using the MD command:

d:
md OEBACK
cd d:\oeback
md folder1
md folder2

Etcetera, until you have sufficient backup folders for each Identity. Now go
back to the Identities folder and copy the files over. Again, each Identity
has a long number for a folder name:

cd c:\windows\applic~1\identi~1
cd [identity folder 1]
cd micros~1
cd outloo~1
copy *.* d:\backup\folder1

Repeat for each Identity. As for the Identities themselves, they're located
in the Registry. In DOS, you use REGEDIT to export key(s) as necessary, but
I forget exactly which keys need to be exported. Maybe someone else will
chime in with that info.