trouble in paradise

[JJHACK]

Hey folks, I have had the same Email account for about 15 years now. Last night .........Midnight I'm guessing Earthlink Email crashed and they have screwed up my Email account and blanked out every single email I had saved. They also lost my entire Email address book.

So, with so much of my business Email related and dozens of files and information completely lost, likely forever I need anyone who needs to contact me to have this new Email.

I started a google account, jjhack was already taken oddly enough? so my new Email is

Fakawe@gmail.com

Anyone hunting with me this year, and anyone needing to contact me should begin using this Email. I'm clearly done with Earthlink after this mess! They cliam they may be able to recover all the lost data, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Graybeard]

You mean you trusted that stuff to Earthlink and didn't save it on your own computer's hard drive? My you are a trusting soul.

[JJHACK]

How does one save emails within their hard drive separate from the Email program provided by the email company?

I was always under the impression( unfortunately) that the emails I down load from the server were separate from the Providers program. That is clearly not true with earthlink. Everything On my computer that I had in files within my Earthlink program were lost.  That is 12 years of files gone. Earthlink may be able to recover them, they still are uncertain.

I'm now trying to find a program to store emails separate of the providers service. These saved emails have to be capable of being sent back with a reply. I'm not a software engineer, or Email program genius. I do know what a mess this is now though! Every Email I have ever received or written is gone!

[Graybeard]

I've never used Earthlink and honestly have no knowledge of them so am not really able to answer that question. If you are using a PC with ANY version of Windows as your OS then it came with either Outlook or Outlook Express on it.

Those are the only two programs I've ever used for e-mail and they work just fine regardless of who your ISP is. With them everything is on your computer and your hard drive so there is nothing for anyone else but you to lose. To the best of my knowledge all other e-mail clients that folks use work similarly. No clue what Earthlink has or does. I cannot conceive tho of it not allowing you the option at least of them being on your own computer's hard drive.

No matter who use use as an ISP and no matter what e-mail service you use you really should make sure it saves them to your computer hard drive and if it don't then don't use it. Since you have your own website and your own domain I can't imagine why you'd want to use any other e-mail address for your business than one @your own domain either. Matt and I use various @graybeardoutdoors.com e-mail addresses for all our official website related business.

[JJHACK]

Bill, there is no shortage of panic right now, no question about that.

My Earthlink emails are on my hard drive, but they are stored within the "total access" earthlink program. That program became corrupt, it's on my hard drive, but it's earthlinks program. Something happened to lots of people at midnight on Monday with this program. None of us are able to read emails. Yes they were on my hard drive, but they were within an email program that earthlink provides, that program somehow crapped out. They are doing the research to figure out how to recover these emails now. I'll let you know what they find, but for now, and most likely for the future. I will be going to another Emial provider. This loss is significant to me as you might imagine.

It's common human nature to have people say " I told you so" or "you're too trusting"  or what ever they may feel when it's somebody else with a problem. We also feel these things only happen to somebody else.

I'm here to tell you folks that these things can occur even with good systems. There are so many things involved with anything on line and with all the interactions between them. I'll certainly be trying to figure out solution to this now! It's a wake up call for the new year to be sure everything you want on your computer is saved someplace else!

[deltecs]

How does one save emails within their hard drive separate from the Email program provided by the email company?

I was always under the impression( unfortunately) that the emails I down load from the server were separate from the Providers program. That is clearly not true with earthlink. Everything On my computer that I had in files within my Earthlink program were lost.  That is 12 years of files gone. Earthlink may be able to recover them, they still are uncertain.

I'm now trying to find a program to store emails separate of the providers service. These saved emails have to be capable of being sent back with a reply. I'm not a software engineer, or Email program genius. I do know what a mess this is now though! Every Email I have ever received or written is gone!

JJ, Microsoft Outlook has the capability to grab emails from almost any email program and then store, read, and respond to them as the default email program on your computer.  Thus, if the email provider crashes all data there, you still have it on your computer.  I use mine constantly, especially the preview pane that allows me to see the email before I open it and possibly be infected with a virus.  You cannot use Outlook Express.  It must be Outlook.  I highly recommend it, it is almost used exclusively for most of my correspondence and important filing.  You can even scan documents into it.  This program will do more than I'm capable of learning or effectively using it.  If you cannot grab emails from your provider, just have the provider email program forward all your email to Outlook and then open it and sort accordingly.  Outlook can also grab multiple email accounts for a central email setup.   I think this is what you are looking for.  It is well worth the investment and may already be on your computer, if you have Microsoft OS in Professional editions.

[Graybeard]

Yes Outlook is what I now use. I began with Outlook Express but for the last few years have used Outlook.

Jim as important as your e-mails are I'd not only use an independent client resident to your computer's hard drive but I'd also back up on yet another hard drive regularly. I was doing that until my back up drive crapped out on me and Matt hasn't fixed it yet. It died very early in its life and he was supposed to pull it and return it under warranty but hasn't gotten his round tuit yet. I'd hate to lose mine especially the GBO related ones but it's not like your business.

[Siskiyou]

Earthlink is a bad word around here.  We had my father-in-law, a neighbor, and our home hooked up to a very good ISP.  Earthlink ran around buying different ISP including the one we were using about fifteen years ago.  Our service went from good to bad.  I hung on to Earthlink because it provided fair access when I was on the road.  At the same I maintained a couple of Yahoo Mail accounts.  Yahoo Mail Bulk Mail catches 99.9 percent of the Spam and I delete it.

Earthlink kept having problems keeping their system operating; the only thing that came on time was the bill.  When I went to discontinue Earthlink they made it tough throwing up all kinds of roadblocks.  After three phone calls they disconnected me.  This was a common problem and the State Attorney General and the better business bureau started getting involved.  There were so many complaints that one or more California TV stations did special news segments on the issues.

When my father-in-law, and the neighbor decided they had had enough of Earthlink they faced the same problems.  I took over for them and got them disconnected.  The key was to have good notes, record the person I was talking to, the time, and the date. 

Earthlink made it very easy to discontinue the service because of their business practices.  I went to another provider and the service and business practices were commendable.  When I switch from the last dial-up provider to a cable provider the folks were very nice.  Earthlink moved their call center to India a year or so after we cancelled our service.

Another friend who was taken over by Earthlink hung in there for a long time because of her business related travels, but she has quit Earthlink and now has a YAHOO Mail and a different provider. 

I appreciate your post because it is time again to save my address books on a backup cd.

[deltecs]

I've had Yahoo email for over 14 years now and use it for most email reply address.  It is extremely easy for Outlook to grab Yahoo email and address book or contacts and insert them into Outlook.  Yahoo was needed to access my email and correspondence while traveling for work before I retired.  My associates know this email and so use it to contact me.  Outlook since it is solely on my computer hd cannot be accessed from a remote terminal unless it is networked together with a host computer.  One needs an email provider, yet can use his computer to access and send emails with Outlook.  Yahoo also has my recommendation as a good email program and it is free.