After clearing my history folder I can no longer recall by day, date, week ending etc’¦ my last visits to the internet pages because all of the history sub-folders have gone. To recall recent visits to the internet I have to go and open the history folder then search through this long list. I am using Internet Explorer 4.01 with the service patches. This problem has just happened. It has working fine up until I cleared my history folder last time.

A damaged or corrupt ‘index.dat’ file in the history folder may be the cause of this problem. This file is not actually visible in the Windows Explorer because Explorer is able to transform this file into the sub-folders and the appropriate internet pages in those sub-folders. This file is difficult to find and the only way to find it is to use a ‘lower technological’ application (eg. MS-DOS Prompt). This is because a file viewer such as Windows Explorer will decode the file and view it as a history folder with internet pages, etc’¦ rather than raw data (which the file contains). It is also hard to replace this file because it is read-only. The good news is that it is possible to replace the offending file IF you can find a LEGAL copy of it. Once you have found a copy of the file elsewhere, copy it to a disk. Do this at the MS-DOS prompt by going to Start menu > Programs and, click on MS-DOS Prompt. Then go to the directory C:WindowsHistory (or whatever drive Windows is on), place a floppy disk in the drive, and type (without the quotes) ‘Copy index.dat a:’. Once it has copied, reboot your computer and when the message ‘Starting Windows 9x’ appears (and/or just before the Windows splash screen appears) press the F8 key. When the boot menu appears select ‘Safe mode command prompt only’ and press enter. As the command prompt appears, switch to your Windows History directory (eg. type ‘cd windows’, then when in the Windows directory ‘cd history’). At the prompt that says ‘C:windowshistory’ (or alike) type ‘attrib index.dat -a’. This will make the file writeable instead of read-only so you can copy over it. Once that is done copy the ‘index.dat’ that is ok from the floppy by typing ‘copy a:index.dat c:windowshistory’. Finally type ‘attrib index.dat +a’ to make the file read-only again.