Yeah, that does suck...I haven't used ie mail 
much, but if you can find out what the extension 
is for the address book (I know in outlook it's 
.pab) you could back that up at least, (do a find 
for the filename or *.extension on C: include all 
subfolders) and I'm sure if you can view mail 
when not connected to your isp that there is a 
local file for your mail being stored on the C: 
drive- again, if you can find that file name you 
can back it up occassionally, onto a floppy or 
whatever. I believe Eudora works off a local copy 
of your mail and synchronizes also, so again, 
finding that file name [and writing down the 
directory where the program stores it] would 
allow you to back up the file and restore it 
later if need be.
aion - works for a large computer company doing 
phone support for people with pc problems. ;)