Page 1 of 2 1 2 LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 27

Thread: How to get Outlook data from old drive

Hybrid View

  1. #1
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2000
    Location
    King City, Ontario Canada
    Posts
    1,083

    How to get Outlook data from old drive

    Buddies system just failed, (won't power up anymore). He is out buying a new computer and wants me to slave the old system hard drive in the new system and copy his Outlook emails, contacts, etc, etc to the new version of Outlook.

    I have been googling for this procedure but everything I find assumes either backups were done or the Outlook files are corrupt. Neither is the case.

    What procedures do I use in this case?

  2. #2
    Member Kandar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Posts
    475
    Outlook (Not outlook express) stores its mail in PST files located in the following locations depending on your OS:

    Visa/ Windows 7 is like this:
    C:\Users\*USERNAME*\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outloo k

    Windows XP is more like this:
    C:\Documents and Settings\*USERNAME*\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outloo k

    This will only retrieve the mail not the contacts. I cant remember off the top of my head how to get the contacts but i'll post back when the brain kicks back in.

    Might be better to ask why the system has died and can it be fixed before rushing out to buy a new one.
    Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

  3. #3
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2000
    Location
    King City, Ontario Canada
    Posts
    1,083
    It is Outlook, not Outlook Express. He has WinXP on the failed system and I'm assuming the new one will be Windows 7. I also assume Outlook will be whatever happens to be the current version.

    This guy is very impatient and does not want for cash. He wants a fully functioning system by end of day tomorrow.

    Do I just copy the files or try to use Import/Export or???

  4. #4
    Member Kandar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Posts
    475
    Install outlook and setup the account details. The folder structure will then be created with a new empty PST file. You just need to navigate to that location and replace the PST file with the one from his old rig.
    When you restart outlook you should see the old mail and folder structure.
    Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

  5. #5
    Member Kandar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Posts
    475
    incidently if your not sure where the email data is located you can go into control panel after you have setup the account and look for the "mail" icon and click "Data Files"
    This will show you where the PST files are for all accounts
    Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

  6. #6
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2000
    Location
    King City, Ontario Canada
    Posts
    1,083
    Should I be concerned about file format compatibility between older and newer versions of Outlook?

  7. #7
    Member Kandar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Posts
    475
    Update on data paths:

    Windows 2000/XP, Outlook stores *.pst files in C:\Documents and Settings\*username*\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook.

    Vista / Windows 7 replaces Documents and Settings folder path with a Users path so you'll find Outlook stores the PST in C:\Users\*username*\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outloo k.

    I have not yet had any issues with moving PST files from older to newer versions of outlook so I don't expect you will have any dificulties with it.
    Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

  8. #8
    Hail to the Victors dajogejr's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Metro-Detroit
    Posts
    5,224
    It'll work, and the one PST file contains all info like contacts, calendar, etc.
    Instead of setting it up and replacing the file, just set up Outlook to do their mail, IMPORT the data from the PST.

    When you copy over, it can make a mess and leave you with dual contact lists, etc.

    Import from the old PST is so much easier and it gives you the options for an older version of Outlook (I believe it's called 97-2003 .pst)

    If there are any issues, download a tool called scanpst.exe to scan and fix any corrupted folders/files in the old Pst file.
    I've successfully done this going from Office 2000, Office XP or 2003 into 2007 and even beta 2010. No issues.

  9. #9
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2000
    Location
    King City, Ontario Canada
    Posts
    1,083
    Ran into a complication. Seems that although he had purchased Office 2003 he had never installed and used Outlook. He was using Outlook Express, which does not exist in Windows 7 so now I have to try to find the OE files and import??

  10. #10
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2000
    Location
    King City, Ontario Canada
    Posts
    1,083
    We found the directory that contains the old OE .dbx files but Outlook doesn't see them.

    I did some more reading and it seems Windows Live Mail is recomended to read old OE data but I can't get it to work. Is there a tutorial somewhere on how to get Live Mail to read old Outlook files?

  11. #11
    Ultimate Member Ol'Tunzafun's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2002
    Location
    Canadian prairie
    Posts
    3,798
    Is there a tutorial somewhere on how to get Live Mail to read old Outlook files?
    http://blogs.technet.com/james/archi...ows-vista.aspx

    You should also do a search on the old machine for .wab files which will contain his old contacts.

  12. #12
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2000
    Location
    King City, Ontario Canada
    Posts
    1,083
    We found all the old OE files but are having issues getting them across.

    When we use Outlook to import the address book it does not bring the addresses into the Contacts folder of Outlook. Instead they go into a Contacts directory in a "Windows Contact" format, (.contact I believe). We found a way to convert them to .csv format but Outlook will only import CSV files one at a time.

    Is there some way to get the address book from OE to import directly into Outlook contacts? If not, is there a way to get Outlook to import all of the CSV's rather than one at a time?

    When we try to get the email files, (.dbx), to import we get an 'Import Error: The mail folder could not be opened......'. This one has us stumped and he has some REALLY important information in some of those emails. We made sure ownership and permissions are correct and also removed all read only tags on the files.

    Is there something we are missing when trying to import the email or do those files need to be converted to another format?

  13. #13
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2000
    Location
    King City, Ontario Canada
    Posts
    1,083
    I am about to give up on getting Outlook to import the OE files from the old drive. The only guess I have left is that the files containing the .dbx folders must be on the primary C drive of the Win7 machine rather than on the old secondary drive. If that guess does not pan out I will try to make it work with Windows Mail.

    I learned today that there are two versions of this program. Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail.

    All of the instructions I have found to date for importing OE data only work for Windows Mail as there is no 'File' option on the Windows Live Mail menus.

    When I played around with Live Mail it automatically searched for and found the old OE files on my own WinXP system. There is no option to look for other files. However my XP system bears little resemblance to the Win7 system we are trying to recover the OE mail from.

  14. #14
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2000
    Location
    King City, Ontario Canada
    Posts
    1,083
    Got it. It is the menu bar that went missing. Got it back using Alt-F, (also an option under the 'Menus' icon.

    The net of this is: set permissions and ownership for the OE directories and files on the secondary drive then copy them to the primary C: drive. Remove read-only attributes from the copied directories and files. Import the .dbx email directory into Windows Live Email, (Alt-F to get to menu bar).

    How to get OE address book into Outlook is still unsolved.

  15. #15
    Ultimate Member Ankerson's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Location
    NC
    Posts
    1,441
    What version of Office is it?
    Intel I5 750 @ 2.67 Ghz, 4gb GSkill DDR3 1600, GB P55M-UD2, XFX Radeon 5850. , Seagate Constellation ES 1 TB, Seasonic Gold 620w, Win Vista Ultimate, Toshiba 32" HDTV


Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •