Luddite sadness

Had a trojan on my XP. Took it to my sister's wizard in the far reaches of Downsville. Wizard did what wizards do, alas, which is reinstall the OS from scratch. This loses you things like email messages. That annoys me. If Windows can remember Documents and IE favourites, why can't it remember OE email folders, or at the very least, addresses?
( Cut for more gloom )