I moved my /home contents to a FAT partition at the end of my disk with the intention of resizing and reformatting my Linux partitions and clean-upgrading to SUSE 10 (RC1). I gave SUSE 10 YaST the repartitioning and software package selection instructions, started the setup and went to sleep (it was late). When I wake up I find that for some reason the install is faulty and my backup FAT partition is gone. Now I have successfully reaccessed that FAT partition from PC Inspector on Windows XP, and copying files from that partition to my XP partition (should have done that in the first place) so I can wipe the rest of the hard disk and start install over again. Thank God I decided on a freak impulse to use a FAT partition for backup. I doubt PC Inspector would have detected stuff on an ext3 or reiserfs partition. Now I have backed up all my software archives (entire KDE 3.42 etc) to Windows, and only thing that remains is my mail. Where do I find it for backing up? http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdepim/kmail/faq.html#id2605128 told me to look under ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/. What I see is this: ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/ <DIR> Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 11 KB gmail <DIR> Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 1 KB inbox <DIR> Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 30 KB linux <DIR> Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 1 KB trash <DIR> Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 1 KB drafts <DIR> Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 1 KB sent-mail <DIR> Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 1 KB outbox Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 0 KB .sent-mail.index.ids Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 0 KB .drafts.index.ids Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 0 KB .trash.index.ids Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 1 KB .gmail.index.ids Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 35 KB .linux.index.sorted Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 114 KB .gmail.index Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 12 KB .gmail.index.sorted Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 352 KB .linux.index Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 0 KB .outbox.index.ids Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 0 KB .drafts.index.sorted Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 0 KB .trash.index Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 0 KB .outbox.index Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 3 KB .linux.index.ids Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 6 KB .inbox.index.sorted Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 0 KB .sent-mail.index Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 0 KB .outbox.index.sorted Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 1 KB .inbox.index.ids Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 55 KB .inbox.index Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 0 KB .drafts.index Now I go into my linux folder, where I had over 600 mails. What I see is just this: ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/mail/linux/cur Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 3 KB 1127838133.8468.8OKk1 Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 4 KB 1127753083.7778.qCNPE Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 3 KB 1125949189.7912.24Njw Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 3 KB 1127811450.9746.v4dtL Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 4 KB 1127829717.9746.R35h5 Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 3 KB 1127838270.8468.41sOv Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 3 KB 1125949191.7912.hFQpD Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 3 KB 1126005183.7843.FMmJY Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 1 KB 1125949892.7912.bQmpO Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:45 3 KB 1126007496.7843.GggTY Somehow these file sizes don't look right. I see a lock file in the ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail folder. Perhaps kmail didn't shut down properly? Do I have to recover the mail from elsewhere? Contents of lock file: appName=kmail hostname=linux pid=-1 programName=KMail