Body message dissapeared

[Al_H]

Hi,
A certain number of body messages in and friend´s old computer have disappeared. It affects more the old messages. Since the computer is not mine, I do not dare to compact the mail (the whole mail is a mess), to try recovering the body of those messages
Any recommendation?
Al_H

[DanRaisch]

A bit more detail, please.
How is the account set up in Thunderbird, as POP or IMAP? Find out using menu path Tools->Account Settings->Server Settings->Server Type at the top right of the dialogue.
Does this involve just the Inbox folder or is it other folders as well?
Have you/they tried right clicking on the name of the folder from which the message bodies have disappeared and clicked on "Properties" and then the "Repair" button?

[Al_H]

So,
1) it is a POP3 account
2) I did the "repair" thing, saved before the .msf file. I loses all emails before 31/03/2017 (meaning, even headers disappear)
3) I recopied the original .msf file. Old messages "re appeared", still, only headers for some of them
4) I did it again, but now even if I copy again back the saved .msf file, I dont recover the old messages

[DanRaisch]

All that suggests that there is corruption of the message file and that the messages shown in the list display may not actually be accessible. That is, there is information on the message in the message summary file (.msf) which is an index of sorts, but that Thunderbird can not access the message text from the file that contains the full message content. See if there is any help available in this article -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recover_messa ... upt_folder