Mail Application is restarting

Question

I just did a software update now I am 10.4.8 this morning. Suddenly when I click on my Mail icon it wants to start all over as if I have never used the program before. I am afraid to go through the process because I will lose all my pop mail (its not on the email server that I use). Any ideas?
I tried starting the program from the Application folder.
I am very confused. PS I found my mailbox, so it still exists. Previous posts seem to indicate the disk utility is futility.
Thanks.

Answer 1

Arrrggghh. Mail froze again. I had cleaned up a bunch of emails last night after we ran the disk utlity (without using the startup disk, just from the desktop). And bam.
Sooo I started up from Install disk and ran disk utility.
It could repair the permissions but not repair the disk.
It actually errorred during the verify disk part.
This is what it said:
========
Incorrect block count for file. journal .history
(it should be 517 instead of 0)
Overlapped extent allocation file (file 25604959d)
Incorrect block count for file .store.db
(it should be 7077 instead of 0)
Overlapped extent allocation file (file 25604993d)
Incorrect block count for file LSMMap2
(is should be 92 instead of 0)
Incorrect block count for file CACHE_003
IN RED LETTERS/FONT: Incorrect number of thread records
Checking multi-linked files
Checking Catalog heirarchy
IN RED LETTERS/FONT: Invalid directory item count
(it should be 44 instead of 45)
IN RED LETTERS/FONT: Invalid volume file count
(it should be 410234 instead of 410238)
Checking extended attributes file
Checking volume bit map
IN RED LETTERS/FONT: Volume bitmap needs minor repair
Checking volume info
IN RED LETTERS/FONT: Invalid Volume free blcok count
(it should be 21384288 instead of 21381443)
The volume Steven HD needs to be repaired
IN RED LETTERS/FONT: Error the underlying task reported failure on exit
ANd then the Disk Utility pop up window came up saying Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
===========
Arrggghhh, what do you think? Is it way messed up?
Should I trash mail app and reload? Or is the mail app failure a symptom of something bigger.
Thanks.
Robin