Some suggestions...

The computer is dumb as a brick! ...it only does what it is told to do, and it only reports what it is told to report...based upon the best info at hand. The reports you are getting back is what it is reading from the registry...which in fact may not be true. If you have a reg cleaner, run it to put the house back into some sort of order.

1. Find out what extension is used by your mail prog for such files and do a full system search of c:\ for all those files with that extension> Search *.??? That will turn up any that are still on board. If you have a slave drive, set up a folder to cache all of them and copy the whole lot of them to that cache folder...the same can be done on another partition.

2. If you know the name of the file, or even the extension, do a reg seach for it...if it is still on board it will be pathed out in the registry...this may take a while if you are shooting blind...try different key words for the file's name...

3. Don't try to restore the folder to its original location...just drag and copy it to a bogus folder on c:\ and then try to open it up...

P/S did you do a properties search of that supposed hiding place...find out the size of the contents, seen or otherwise...does it add up to what you can see visually...if the properties sum is larger then the visual sum, then there IS something hiding there, but if it is a mis-cued error message, then there might not be anything there at all... Somebody can correct me if I am assuming that properties can calculate hidden files' sums/sizes.