It's not a massive issue but my desktop PC is up the swanny again.

I backed up my outlook on the 1st but there are one or two messages I wouldn't mind pulling out if I could. The problem with the PC is that the fecking thing won't start. If I plug the drive into another PC I'll be able to get at the data but can anyone tell me what to look for and how to get the messages out please.

Panic over - well sort of.

I've got the old beast running again but I may have suffered a disk failure.

Files are Outlook.pst, archive.pst (and possibly some variations on these names if you altered your settings before.

Additionally Address book is named VRstu.wab (i.e. has the wab extension) and if you exported your address book into another format at anytime you may have a mailbox.pab file in their somwhere.

Essentially the main files will be Oulook.pst and archive.pst - so do search for 'pst' extension and copy anything it comes up with to your other hard drive.

These files will probably be in Documents and Settings folder (I moved mine - but most peeps don't)..

Panic over - well sort of.

I've got the old beast running again but I may have suffered a disk failure.

Hmm - you wait till I type all that lot out and then prepost me :P

Hmm - you wait till I type all that lot out and then prepost me :P

In any case - back up as much stuff as you can straightaway in case your hard drive is going down.

Thanks for your efforts, much appreciated.

What I was actually looking for was the data files that are stored on the program folder or whatever, to recover the ones that were still in my inbox.

What I was actually looking for was the data files that are stored on the program folder or whatever, to recover the ones that were still in my inbox.

The data files i.e. the ones that contain your inbox and other emails are the Outlook.pst file (and older, archived emails are in the Archive.pst file) and are stored as I said in the Documents and Settings folders.

And - if you go any 'deeper' (try to sort, rearrange things) Outlook will seriously do your head in, so be warned.

IIRC your file will get backed up as a Comma Seperated Value or .csv file so search for that. it will either be Outlook.CSV Bookmark.CSV or Inbox.CSV unless you named it yourself. If you search for .CSV you should find it as thats what my outlook always backs it up as

This is for Outlook 2007 & 2003 not sure about earlier versions as only used these 2

for xp, the default is

c:\documents and settings\username\local settings\application data\microsoft\outlook

and

c:\documents and settings\username\application data\microsoft\outlook

you will need to enable the "view hidden files/folders" option in explorer, and maybe even "show system files"

Just had a nice bit of advice from Tony - Fluffmeister.

I knew you were able to leave a copy of messages on the server but not that there was the option to have them deleted when they are removed from the deleted folder - suits me down to the ground.

So for the moment I'm all sorted, and backed up again. I do generally try to back them up weekly anyway.

Thanks for all your replies - I knew I could count on you.

IIRC your file will get backed up as a Comma Seperated Value or .csv file so search for that. it will either be Outlook.CSV Bookmark.CSV or Inbox.CSV unless you named it yourself. If you search for .CSV you should find it as thats what my outlook always backs it up as

Not so for Outlook 2003 - you have to manually export to a CSV file, it will not do it automatically.

Happy to help LOL,

Not so for Outlook 2003 - you have to manually export to a CSV file, it will not do it automatically.

Oh well its true you do learn something new everyday