Archive deletes messages on Outlook XP

I keep losing path to archive folder on Outlook XP. File > Archive to run manual archive to reestablish the path. This seems to delete messages instead of archiving regardless of the date older than. I would rather drag and drop old messages to archive folder now after automated process started to screw me up. I cannot even see the folder to drop to, but if ran manually, it seems to delete messages. Please advise.