30 Days sayanora hotmail

I have/had an email account with hotmail.com for years. It was one of my first web email accounts. I hadn't logged on to it in a while and when i did it acted like they didn't know me and wanted me to try the new Mail Live account. I said yes and when i was done it looked like a fresh new account. Meaning, no previous email. After a few rounds with about 6 different help desk people via email I finally was told that after 30 days, your account is put on hold AND emails are purged into the abyss of no recovery. I checked w/ gmail and it seems they will consider you a no show at 9 months. Big difference. I kept the account mainly to store some old email but I'm fairly certain I got most of it. If I don't then oh well, it's old. I'm still pissed about it though. I want to migrate one of my personal email accounts off of it next.