I have a problem with outlook express 6 and hope somebody can help me.

I was checking my emails and was about to switch to another identity in my Outlook express then this message came: "To clear up disk space, Outlook express can compact your messages" or something like that. I chose YES and then outlook express started compacting my messages.

However in the middle of operation, my computer froze (we call it hanged here).. so nothing was working and I decided to restart my laptop.

When I opened by laptop again, ALL MY INBOX EMAILS WERE GONE.

Will I still be able to recover them? I havent clicked anything (except restarting the computer) when my computer froze.

Somebody help