Import to Outlook - dumb wizard.

[Keygrip]

So, Hurricane Frances comes rolling through - gives us 115 mile per hour winds for 18 hours continuous. Utility company finally gets around to reconnecting the power - but the next 24 hours have some serious surges. Happy new hard drive. The original one died - was, effectively, electrocuted.

Computer repair shop install new (empty) hard drive and install a clean (certified!!) copy of Windows XP Pro.

I plead with 'tech' to rescue the e-mails, folders and contacts lists from the old hard drive. He makes a ".pst" file and stores it on my desktop (20,816kb).

I take machine home, install certified copy of Microsoft Office 2000 and attempt to import all the files and subfolders into the new Outlook.

Our survey says..........<insert appropriate noise of failure>.

I've followed the wizard, accepted help from the paper clip, but still no good - did manage to get the files to transfer from the .pst file, but haven't a clue where they went to, can only say that they did not show up in Outlook.

Any thoughts?

Sequence of clicks...

In Outlook, click "File", click "Import and Export" (wizard opens).
Select "Import from another program or file" (File sounds right, it's on my desktop). Click "Next"
"Import a file" box opens - click on "Personal Folder File (.pst) Click "Next"
Find the file to import. Radio button "Do not import duplicates". Next.
Now comes a box suggesting file transfer, with the line "Select the folder to import from:" and I see the tree of folders in Outlook (but the current ones in my new Outlook installation).
Tick in the box "Include subfolders". Radio button EITHER option for import...click "Finish"

Chime - then box saying "The source and destination folders for this operation cannot be the same"

Click "OK" - back to square one. No folder transfer. Grrrrrrrr.

[The Nr Fairy]

If it's a PST file, try just opening it direct - no need to import.

File -> Open -> Personal Folders File then copy from those folders to the ones opened by default when Outlook started.

[Keygrip]

Thanks NR - but it didn't work.

Had Outlook open (always is) on screen - clicked "File" (drop down menu appears), hovered mouse over "Open", box full of "My Documents" appeared. Navigated to desktop>olddrive1>outlook.pst - clicked it - all boxes disappear and Outlook goes direct to "Personal Folders - Outlook Today" page and tells me that I have 59 messages in my (new) Inbox.

For some reason it takes me straight to the new program settings - won't do anything with the old information that I'm trying to import/merge.

Any more thoughts?

[Ray Darr]

When you initially start Outlook from a fresh installation, it makes a new .pst file, and maps out where its default .pst file location is (somewhere under Documents and Settings).

If you want to import an entire .pst file, and that file has all the Outlook settings and data you want to use, this trick is much more effective (IMHO) than the import tool that MS provides.

Make sure you have closed Outlook before doing the following:

Do a search for all the pst files you have on your system using START | SEARCH, *.pst. The search should locate just two .pst files - the .pst the tech put on your desktop, and the default .pst in the Docs & Settings.

DELETE the default .pst that is in Docs & Settings. Remember, doing this will now delete any entries you have made into Outlook up to this point!

Using Windows Explorer, move the .pst file you wish to use from your desktop to whatever location you prefer. I happen to use all my data in, surprise surprise, a DATA folder (i.e. C:>Data\MS Outlook Current PST File) for easier backups. You can place it wherever you desire, even the default location. All roads lead to Rome, as they say.

Start Outlook. If you place your .pst file into a differnet location than the default, it tries in vain to locate the .pst file it had mapped before, and will pop-up a folder-menu. Map out the new file/folder location (wherever you had moved the .pst file the tech had on your desktop to).

Presto, you should have everything just as it was pre-Frances (Outlook-wise, anyway).

Hope everything else weathered the storm fine.

Good luck.
~R.D.

[Ray Darr]

Keygrip,

Hurricane-related repairs aside, did this work?

Cheers,
~ R.D.

[DeepC]

I did this a while ago and I found the most fool proof way of doing it was to open Outlook and look at the file location options. Note the location, close outlook and copy the PST into that location. It should overwrite the new one.

DeepC