Outlook 2003 to Outlook 2003

[Anton]

Hi

My wife crashed my computer - well, she would say, she happened to be using
it was using it when it crashed!

I'd been using Outlook 2003 for emails and OE 6.0 as newsreader. The PC was
so messed up, XP wouldn't even boot into safe mode.

Mobo, processor and were fairly ancient anyway so I built a new PC,
installed XP onto that, did online activation etc.

I managed to connect the old HDD as a secondary master and copied across
hundreds of text files etc.

Only trouble is I can't seem to import my emails!!! Outlook only offers me
an import from other programs, not a previous install of itself. I've read
about .pst files but can't find any on my old HDD. BTW I am still using
Outlook Express also but only as a newsreader.

I managed to import some older mails from an OE 6.0 identity but not the
recent stuff.
Any ideas how to get those emails back would be greatly appreciated!

A

 

[J.L. McClennan]

Search the *hidden* folders and files (advanced options) on the old hard
disk and look for files with the PST extension.
For each one that you find, use the File > Open > Outlook data file command
to open them in your new Outlook setup. You can use Edit|Move to move
entire folders or sets of messages to the personal folders that the new
Outlook setup created. When you've moved everything over, right-click
the top level of the folder list and "close" it.

 

[Anton]

Just to update you folks, I got there in the end!

First of all, simple mistake, I didn't find the .pst file on the old HDD as
I hadn't specified 'search hidden files and folders' in the search command.

Once I knew where my old .pst file was, all 73 MB worth of precious inbox,
outbox and contact info, I copied it onto my desktop.

My present version of Outlook 2003 didn't want to open it; seemed like it
was corrupted as an Outlook Data File. So I googled up on that, found the
scanpst utility on my C: drive which sure enough found some errors in my old
..pst file and fixed them.

Outlook could then open this file as a new set of Personal Folders. Not
sure yet whether I can merge old and new fully - not too worried really, as
long as I can access my old emails!!!

HTH

A

 

[Athena [MVP-Outlook]]

Not
sure yet whether I can merge old and new fully - not too worried really, as
long as I can access my old emails!!!

With both folder sets open in Outlook, open a folder, select and item then
click "Edit|Select All|, followed by
Edit|Copy to folder..." and copy all the information from one folder set to
another.

Once you have copied everything to the folder set you want to use, you can
right-click "Close" the unwanted folder set.

NOTE: If you decide to use your old folder set as your default, you have to
set it as the delivery location for new mail (bottom of the Email Accounts
dialog) before you can close the new one.