One of my hosting expired on the 4th of April (2007). The host was a low end one, which registered domains in its on name, gave us just FTP access & outlook settings for email. However, last week we moved to dreamhost with a new domain. The host on its part has renewed the old domain to get some of the traffic. So, the FTP account as well as the domain still exists. We want a copy of the mail that was recently on a mail account hosted on the old domain. The host is refusing to part with the mails. Can I by any means retrieve my old mails ?
Don't you have pop3/smtp or imap access? If yes, then creat an account in outlook and download them and save the as pst...
Well, if you let the old domain name lapse and you did not pay for it, you do not have any rights to it anymore.
As I said, the domain was registered in the host company's owner's name (the hosting company is far too small)... so he renewed the domain...
Well, if it is registered in your host company name then it belongs to them. Legally, you have not claim to the domain name or anything related to it. I guess the domain name came as part and parcel of the hosting plan and since you have cancelled their hosting, the domain name would also be cancelled from your account and they have the full rights to do anything with it since it is their domain name, not yours. The trouble is that there are web hosts who tries to con customers by offering free domain names and registering under the web host name. This would prevent the customers from moving out of them without losing the domain name or having to pay loads of ransom money to get their domain name back. Just take it as an expensive lesson if you do not want to pay or your web host do not want to take payment. I am sure if you dangle a big enough an amount, they will be more than willing to send you the domain name.