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Question

OE 6 from an external HD

Aug 30, 2013 2:41AM PDT

My wife's computer is awaiting a new CPU. Meanwhile she needs to access her email on Outlook Express 6. I have an XP laptop. I took her C: out of her machine and placed it in a HD dock to use it as an external HD. However whenever I go to open OE from her HD in the dock, it opens up and there is no information. I opened up the address book from the OE folder and none of her contacts were in there.

I don't understand how her information is gone from the OE folder on her HD when it should still be there. Or is the data stored on a server somewhere?

Also, there is no DocumentStettings/(user)/LocalApplication folder on her old HD where her stuff should be.

Her computer was an eMachines W3644 that ran XP SP2.

So what am I missing?

Discussion is locked

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Answer
(NT) Nevermind on the LocalSettings folder.... Found it.
Aug 30, 2013 2:45AM PDT
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...Which has no Outlook folder in it.
Aug 30, 2013 3:37AM PDT

So where's the address book and messages that are supposed to be on my wife's computer HD?
And how can I get to them by using the HD as an external drive?

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Sorry
Aug 30, 2013 3:48AM PDT

But OE is pretty well discussed so I won't duplicate the web.

Did you try Thunderbird to see if it would find and import it all?

The address book might be in the WAB.
Bob

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Re: address book and messages
Aug 30, 2013 3:50AM PDT

If you don't know where the data (address book and messages) is, how would you ever have managed to get them back from your backup if the hard disk of that old PC had broken down? Or, even worse, didn't you backup them at all?

Anyway, does this help?
http://www.z-a-recovery.com/outlook-express-dbx.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/270670

Just searching for files with .dbx extension (or, more specific, inbox.dbx) will find it.
The Windows address book (that's being used by OE) is a file with a .wab extension. Easy to find: *.wab.

Kees