Instructions don't work for bringing old .pst file into new laptop

[Deb RW]

The situation: motherboard on old laptop is blown. Removed hard drive and put
it in an enclosure to copy contents to new laptop. Reinstalled Office with no
problems.

Outlook actions taken: Closed Outlook. Copied three Personal Folders (.pst)
from old hard drive to new. In Outlook, I went to File>Open>Outlook Data File
and chose each of the three Personal Folders now saved to new hard drive. A
few "tasks" appeared, but no calendar appointments or contacts.

I saw some additional instructions to copy NK2 and VBA files to new drive,
but couldn't find either of these on old hard drive. Note that I don't use
Outlook for email ... only for Contacts (mostly phone numbers), Calendar, and
Tasks. I also synch Outlook with my dataphone. Needless to say, I tried and
failed to synch my dataphone with Outlook on new computer.

Any ideas, anyone?

 

[Leonid S. Knyshov // SBS Expert]

The situation: motherboard on old laptop is blown. Removed hard drive and put
it in an enclosure to copy contents to new laptop. Reinstalled Office with no
problems.

Outlook actions taken: Closed Outlook. Copied three Personal Folders (.pst)
from old hard drive to new. In Outlook, I went to File>Open>Outlook Data File
and chose each of the three Personal Folders now saved to new hard drive. A
few "tasks" appeared, but no calendar appointments or contacts.

I saw some additional instructions to copy NK2 and VBA files to new drive,
but couldn't find either of these on old hard drive. Note that I don't use
Outlook for email ... only for Contacts (mostly phone numbers), Calendar, and
Tasks. I also synch Outlook with my dataphone. Needless to say, I tried and
failed to synch my dataphone with Outlook on new computer.

Any ideas, anyone?

Hit Ctrl-6, take a screenshot, and post a link to that screenshot.

That would let me see what you actually have as far as open files are
concerned. You might need to add the folders inside the PSTs to your
favorites. Right-click the missing folder and choose Add to favorite
folders. You will also want to open your archive.pst.
--
Leonid S. Knyshov
Crashproof Solutions
510-282-1008
Twitter: @wiseleo
http://crashproofsolutions.com
Microsoft Small Business Specialist
Try Exchange Online http://bit.ly/free-exchange-trial
Please vote "helpful" if I helped you

 

[DL]

In copying the old data files did you overwrite any existing data files, or
did you locate them in your Documents folder

 

[Deb RW]

Good question ... I saved the old .pst files in a new "My Outlook" folder on
the new laptop.

I also found --
In users>xxx>AppData>Local>Microsoft>Outlook:
extend.dat
Outlook.sharing.xml.obi
Outlook.xml.kfl
Outlook Personal Folder

In users>xxx>AppData>Roaming>Microsoft>Outlook:
outcmd.dat
Outlook.srs
Outlook (XML document)

Does this tell you anything significant??

 

[Deb RW]

Leonid, what exactly do you want in the screen shot? Contents of old hard
drive? New hard drive? Both? Just folders containing Outlook related files?

Not sure I understand your instructions ... see below

:

Hit Ctrl-6, take a screenshot, and post a link to that screenshot.

That would let me see what you actually have as far as open files are
concerned. You might need to add the folders inside the PSTs to your
favorites. ***I AM NOT ABLE TO SEE ANYTHING WITHIN THE PST FILE.***

Right-click the missing folder ***SORRY - HOW DO I RIGHT CLICK ON A FOLDER
THAT IS MISSING?***
and choose Add to favorite folders. You will also want to open your
archive.pst. ***AGAIN, I AM NOT ABLE TO "OPEN" THE .PST FILES. I AM ASKED TO
SPECIFY THE PROGRAM I WANT TO OPEN THEM WITH, AND I DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER TO
THAT.

 

[Leonid S. Knyshov // SBS Expert]

Leonid, what exactly do you want in the screen shot? Contents of old hard
drive? New hard drive? Both? Just folders containing Outlook related files?

Not sure I understand your instructions ... see below

:


Right-click the missing folder ***SORRY - HOW DO I RIGHT CLICK ON A FOLDER
THAT IS MISSING?***
and choose Add to favorite folders. You will also want to open your
archive.pst. ***AGAIN, I AM NOT ABLE TO "OPEN" THE .PST FILES. I AM ASKED TO
SPECIFY THE PROGRAM I WANT TO OPEN THEM WITH, AND I DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER TO
THAT.

Please do me a favor and don't reply in-line. It makes threads very
difficult to follow.

How to take a screenshot:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/tips/screenshot.mspx -
please save the file as a JPG or PNG, not as BMP. You will then need to
post it on the Internet and include a link to it in your post. Try
http://imageshack.us/ for example and give us the Link URL.

While in Outlook, please hit Ctrl-6 and then take a screenshot. That
will let me see how your current profile is setup.

PST files cannot be opened from Windows directly (well, not ordinarily
anyway). They can only be opened from inside Outlook (Click File -> Open
-> Outlook Data File)
--
Leonid S. Knyshov
Crashproof Solutions
510-282-1008
Twitter: @wiseleo
http://crashproofsolutions.com
Microsoft Small Business Specialist
Try Exchange Online http://bit.ly/free-exchange-trial
Please vote "helpful" if I helped you

 

[Deb RW]

This is a screenshot of my Contacts page. When I clicked on one of my
Contacts folders, I got this error message saying "The messaging interface
has returned an unknown error."
http://img52.imageshack.us/i/outlookscreenshot1.jpg/


This is a screen shot of my Mail folders. When I click on any of the three
folders at the bottom of the list, I get an error message: "Cannot expand the
folder. The path specified for the E:\Users\Debbie ...... is not valid." (The
E: drive is the external hard drive, from my old laptop, from which I copied
my old Personal Folders. I didn't have that drive attached to the laptop when
I took this shot.)
http://img46.imageshack.us/i/outlookscreenshot2.jpg/


This is a screen shot of my Calendar, showing all appointments 1 hour
earlier than they're supposed to be (another issue). When I clicked on any
but the top Calendar in the list, the error message said the path was invalid
and removed the Calendar.
http://img691.imageshack.us/i/outlookscreenshot.jpg/

This is starting to seem like a huge mess, and I'm wondering if I can
uninstall Outlook and start all over?? Any help much appreciated!

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

This is a screen shot of my Mail folders. When I click on any of the three
folders at the bottom of the list, I get an error message: "Cannot expand
the
folder. The path specified for the E:\Users\Debbie ...... is not valid."
(The
E: drive is the external hard drive, from my old laptop, from which I copied
my old Personal Folders. I didn't have that drive attached to the laptop
when
I took this shot.)
http://img46.imageshack.us/i/outlookscreenshot2.jpg/

Outlook MUST open any PST that is defined in a mail profile. Naturally, if
the E drive is not connected when you run Outlook, the PST Outlook is trying
to reference doesn't exist and Outlook will complain. Does this surprise you?

It could be that your other problems are also caused by the disconnected
drive. Only you can discover that.