Lost Contacts

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Don4Prez - 15 Oct 2005 22:58 GMT

I had a problem with my PC and needed to reinstall the OS (win2K), after that
I reinstalled Outlook 2000. I copied the entire Documents and Settings
folder to a 2nd hard drive. I also archived Outlook to the second hard drive.
I go to file/open/personal folder file (.pst) and select the outlook folder
in the profile and open it. I have all of my folders and my email but no
contacts. I then tried the archived .pst and had the same issue (all email
and folders but no contacts). I searched the entire PC for .pst files and
found several and opened them all. None have contacts. Does anyone know how
to get the contacts back. I have read many forums here and tried to find the
contacts to no avail. I thought that since I copied the entire documents and
settings folder to the 2nd HDD I would still have all my outlook data.

Thanks,

Don

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Don4Prez - 15 Oct 2005 23:21 GMT

Also, when I reinstall win2K it created new profiles with the login ID
followed by a dot (.) and the PC name, the old profiles are still present. I
tried to open the .pst files under thoseprofiles and had the same problem,
all folders and emails but no contacts. I also tried importing the files and
again there are no contacts.

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Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] - 16 Oct 2005 04:08 GMT

You archived? Why?
Archiving is not backing up.
Contacts are never archived.
Did you back up your data?

Signature

Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

>I had a problem with my PC and needed to reinstall the OS (win2K), after
>that
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
>
> Don

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Don4Prez - 16 Oct 2005 18:45 GMT

I did not back up the files, I thought that archiving would do that (oh well
learn something new every day.) I also copied the documents and settings
folder to my D: drive, so that I retained all data in the profiles (closest
thing to a proper backup).

The boot sector became corrupt due to my power supply going bad (powered it
up 2-3 times to troubleshoot and upon boot up the power supply would blow out)
. When I realized it was a power supply problem and not a HHD I replaced the
power supply but could not get the PC to boot. I tried a windows repair but
that did not fix the problem so I had to do a re-install. After a re-install
of w2k all started up ok but all programs had to be re-installed.

All files on the HDD are still there and accessible. The closest thing to a
backup at this time was to copy the documents and settings to my D: drive and
re-install outlook. I have to believe that since all the files are still on
my HHD (C:) there must be a way to find the contacts. The only folder
replaced during the re-install of w2k was the c:/winnt folder.

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Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] - 16 Oct 2005 19:36 GMT

Can't you just find your old Outlook Data File?
The file you need is your Personal Folders file (*.pst) It's where all the
mail, calendar, contacts etc are stored.

Take a look at these pages for info on Outlook data backup or transfer:
http://www.slipstick.com/config/backup.htm
http://www.howto-outlook.com/Howto/backupandrestore.htm
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010771141033.aspx

Signature

Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

>I did not back up the files, I thought that archiving would do that (oh
>well
[quoted text clipped - 23 lines]
> my HHD (C:) there must be a way to find the contacts. The only folder
> replaced during the re-install of w2k was the c:/winnt folder.

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