Hi.

I had to reformat my computer after my son alterd a bios setting halting the computers ability to boot up.

When reformating, a program called PC angel was able to dump my C hardrive into a file called "my backup" which was accessible after I was complete.

You still have to reinstall any programs, but all the data is still there as well as all of your old documents.

In "my backup/local disk C/programs" an outlook express file is present.

Is my contact list here somewhere?

This files "address book" is empty, so is my contact list stored somewhere else on my old C drive that can be recoverd and copied over onto my new outlook express?

If so, how?

Thanks for your time.

Forgot to mention:

Windows xp SP3

Outlook express 6

IE7

Perhaps the contacts are in the Windows Address Book, which is actually external to OE, but used by it.

Do a search inside that backup for a *.wab

If you find one, just double click it to open it. Report back your findings.

Also, try doing a search for *.pst files and report back the names and timestamps on the files you find.

Both searches turned up nothing... which is odd because now, if I go into "my computer/local diskC/My backup/programs/outlook express" the address book which was empty before, now has the five or six contacts in it that we added to the new outlook express off the top of our heads.

Is "windows address book" different than what's found in the outlook express file named:

Wab
Address book
Microsoft corportation

Again, if this file is called wab, why wouldn't a search for a "wab" file come up empty?

I'll try it again, maybe I made a mistake in my search criterion.

Ok, if I dropped the( *.) before wab then I get quite a few files.

Mostly application extensions or jibberish I'm unsure how to open properly.

Pst gets me over a hundred hits.

My contacts used to be in a file simply called contacts.pst

Does this page provide any new paths for you to investigate:
Inside Outlook Express - Files and Settings - The OE Store Folder

Yes, that link found them... however:

After replaceing my "C" drive copy of this file, with the identical one found in "my backup" all my old email address's are listed.

Unfortunately, when you open outlook express, it still only brings up the five or six email address's we've added since reformat.

The file the in is shown below.

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\MailFrontier\addrbk\all

I noticed the path was incorrect, so I must have just replaced another instance of the backup file by accident.

Its now found here:

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\MailFrontier\addrbk\all

But it still does not come up when you open outlook express.

Well, since you started OE without that address book, it created a new blank one somewhere. You're going to have to go through your OE settings and try to find it. Then remove it, and tell OE where to find/use this file you're restoring from your backup. It needs to be able to see it when it starts without the new contact folder it's already started using.

Ok, success.

Actually, the file I moved earlier to here: :\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\MailFrontier\addrbk\all , had been errased and was back to having only a couple of address's in it. The original was gone as well.

So feeling like I had pretty much lost it for good, I went pokeing around anyway looking for anything else I could salvage.

I stumbled across all my old email files and was able to successfully move them back into the new OE. Bonus!

So that was just too easy, so I kept poking around and found an address book in my backup file found here :

Had to continue post here for some reason lol.

C:\My Backup -- 08-10-20 0353PM\Documents and Settings\Owner.YOUR-049AC463EC\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book

I then found the same kind of file on the new system found here:

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book

I didn't want to try and replace the whole file in case it disappeard again, so I literally just sat both open address books next to each other and individually copied and pasted all 128 address's over to the new address book.

I'm sure there was an easier way, but in the end, I'm back to normal.

Thanks for your time and help.

Good job. Way to stick with it.