When I logged on recently my account looked like a completely new account. All I have is a welcome message from the Hotmail Team, and I have lost all my contacts as well as my correspondences for the past six years.

My questions are as follows:

1. How can I confirm my account has been compromised? And what can/should I do about it?

2. How do I get back all my historic correspondences and contacts?

3. Can I simply close this account and re-open a new account with all my historic correspondences and contacts copied across? How would I do this?

4. I am fearful that someone may be using the original account under my name. This I clearly want to stop immediately, will closing this account achieve this is there something else I need to do? I need to ensure no one is using my account and name without my permission.

5. Finally, how can I stop this happening to my new account?