Question about Outlook Express

I was working on draft response to an email and had numerous revisions at different times , but I was able to access it

each time in my draft file. On one occasion a series of letters appeared at the top of the first line which I deleted but the draft

text was left intact. Not sure it was the next time, don't believe it was, but when I went to revise my email response again from the draft

file it was not there except in an old draft form which appeared in the new format, namely, with the original email from the sender to me

listed one above the other.

I believe it was in the Outlook format which I had converted from back to Hotmail several weeks ago as I found Outlook terrible. Even the

old draft was not accessible to edit as when I moused the continue the draft icon an entirely blank page appeared. I want to get the version

of the last draft and work with it but if had no choice would try to edit the old draft referenced above.

Your help would be greatly appreciated as I had spent considerate time on the draft..I did look for the last draft in the deleted file

but it was not there even when using the recovery icon. In my sent file there was a copy of the old draft mentioned above