Backing up and restoring pst files

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kah - 09 Feb 2007 18:30 GMT

Running Win XP Pro with Outlook 2002 sp3. Had to reformat machine so we
backed up all of the pst folders to another pc. After reinstalling windows
and Outlook, we imported our backup only it is empty, no contacts, no
nothing. The peculiar thing is the backup file we created is over 50MB in
size. If the file is this large, how is that we have no contacts or anything
else. All help would be appreciated. Thanks

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kah

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Brian Tillman - 09 Feb 2007 19:33 GMT

> Running Win XP Pro with Outlook 2002 sp3. Had to reformat machine so
> we backed up all of the pst folders to another pc. After
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> is that we have no contacts or anything else. All help would be
> appreciated. Thanks

Never export to or import from a PST. It's unnecessary and you lose data.
http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/backupandrestore.htm

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Brian Tillman

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kah - 09 Feb 2007 20:05 GMT

That's great advise for the future, but what might my options be now that the
export function was used and then the machine reformatted thus erasing the
original pst files? I guess I also have to ask, if the import/export
funtions are that unreliable, why are they even there?

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kah

> > Running Win XP Pro with Outlook 2002 sp3. Had to reformat machine so
> > we backed up all of the pst folders to another pc. After
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> Never export to or import from a PST. It's unnecessary and you lose data.
> http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/backupandrestore.htm

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Brian Tillman - 09 Feb 2007 20:57 GMT

> That's great advise for the future, but what might my options be now
> that the export function was used and then the machine reformatted
> thus erasing the original pst files? I guess I also have to ask, if
> the import/export funtions are that unreliable, why are they even
> there?

They are there for transferring data between non-Outlook data files.

If you use File>open>Outlook Data File to open the PST and it contain
nothing, then it was damaged in the creation or copy process and you are out
of luck.

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Brian Tillman

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