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From: nate@cpocd2.UUCP (Nathan Hess)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Gnu emacs rmail warning!
Message-ID: <954@cpocd2.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Oct-87 10:28:11 EST
Article-I.D.: cpocd2.954
Posted: Thu Oct 29 10:28:11 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 4-Nov-87 07:10:09 EST
References: <98@piring.cwi.nl>
Reply-To: nate@cpocd2.UUCP (Nathan Hess)
Organization: Intel Corp., ASIC Services Operation, Chandler AZ
Lines: 27

In article <98@piring.cwi.nl> Steven Pemberton writes:
>Just a warning - our machine crashed while I was in the middle of
>running rmail. ALL my mail, old and new got lost! RMAIL was empty
>except for the "if you are reading this, the file is empty" message,
>RMAIL~ was zero length, and my mail file in /usr/spool (which had
>contained 14 new messages) was also empty. BE WARNED!

I quote here a portion of the GNU Emacs manual, the section on Inboxes
in the RMAIL chapter.  This might contain the answer to your lost mail
dilemma:


  Copying mail from an inbox in the system's mailer directory actually
  puts it in an intermediate file `~/.newmail'.  This is because the
  interlocking is done by a C program that copies to another file.
  `~/.newmail' is deleted after mail merging is successful.  If there is
  a crash at the wrong time, this file will continue to exist and will
  be used as an inbox the next time you get new mail.


Hope this helps...
--woodstock
-- 
	   "How did you get your mind to tilt like your hat?"

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