Outlook Express-can't see accounts/emails!

Ally

Me again!

A some of you may know, I've had problems with my PC. I moved the HDD into another PC and it is fine, all the data is there.

However, when I tried to open OE, there were no accounts listed and no emails. Checked the WAB (address book icon) and it is empty.

Are all our accounts and emails still on the HDD? I can't figure why they wouldn't be there And I need to check it pretty soon, haven't done it since Thurday and it'll take ages to DL new emails and go through them!

Any help appreciated in really basic terms .... I am being dim as poopy right now, after blowing the new PSU we got last night

T4i

If you use the HDD with all the OE data on, open OE and export emails, address book and settings....

Save these exports to a floppy, FTP or somewhere....

Then, go back to your other HDD, open OE and goto import. Import the files you just saved using export.

Wombat

Ally - have you installed the old HDD as a slave drive in the other PC? Or is it the only HDD? If it's mounted as a slave, your emails and accounts will be on there, but Outlook Express will be looking at the master HDD for your emails and accounts. You need to copy the Outlook folders over to the master HDD.

If your old HDD is mounted as the master, then you may well find that your emails are contained in an Outlook Express folder under a different account name, since your account name on that PC will be different to the old PC.

Again, the emails etc. need to be copied over from the old account folders to the new.

I just forget where Outlook Express stores its emails etc., but will do a Google.

Wombat

Try looking here:

http://www.liutilities.com/products/winbackup/whitepapers/paper1/

Ally

Wombat wrote:

Ally - have you installed the old HDD as a slave drive in the other PC? Or is it the only HDD? If it's mounted as a slave, your emails and accounts will be on there, but Outlook Express will be looking at the master HDD for your emails and accounts. You need to copy the Outlook folders over to the master HDD.

If your old HDD is mounted as the master, then you may well find that your emails are contained in an Outlook Express folder under a different account name, since your account name on that PC will be different to the old PC.

Again, the emails etc. need to be copied over from the old account folders to the new.

I just forget where Outlook Express stores its emails etc., but will do a Google.

I can find the Outlook Express folder, but I see nothing in there about the accounts. When I click on "export" and select "address book" a pop up window appears and I click "export" again, another window pops up after a few seconds saying the export process has been completed, but I was not given the option for location of where it was saved

I think the HDD with all the OE accounts/mails is a secondary drive, 'cos it isn't the C drive now, it's F.

Ally

Holy mother of pinapples (sp?)!!! Thank you soooo much guys!

I just imported all my emails and folder!!! There were a lot of hidden files that I could not see, so I selected view hidden files and I found the file with the emails/folders.

Now, I am trying to find the bits with the 'accounts' details!

I went through this step by step when importing the files to the new C drive:
(this is on the HDD that the OE was on)
documents and settings
'user'
local settings
application data
identities
Microsoft
Outlook Express

All the emails/folders were there! But where can I find the data for the 'accounts'??? Luckily I had a folder for all the emails, so it is possible to add them all again, but it will take forever! So, if anyone knows where the 'accounts' bit is and also the address bit, I'd be every so grateful!!

Thanks again!

Chippy_Minton

The account settings can be exported/imported using Tools - Accounts. On the old OE, go into that screen and select the account you want to export and click Export. This creates .iaf file for that account which you can import into the new OE by clicking the Import button. You'll have to do this for each account you want to transfer between the old and new OEs.

Ally

Went into the OE on the old HDD, there are no accounts listed there! All the emails that have been retrieved are there now too! Which is weird as I imported them to the OE on the new HDD!

The OE on both drives was empty, like when it is first installed. Any ideas where the .iaf files would be stored on the old HDD?

Chippy_Minton

Ally wrote:

Any ideas where the .iaf files would be stored on the old HDD?

The .iaf files are only created if you've specifically exported the accounts. The can be stored anywhere, usually under My Documents - it asks you where to save the file.

Ally

oops! ok. So, there will be no record on the HDD of my email accounts that were being used on OE?

Wombat

I think what you will have to do is change where OE stores its information to the slave drive folders, export the accounts, change the stored folders back to the master drive and import the exported file.

So open OE and do the following:

1.On the Tools menu, click Options. 2.Click the Maintenance tab, and then click Store Folder. 3.Click Change, specify the folder that you want to use to store your messages, and then click OK.

Before you change anything, note where OE is storing its data.

Export your accounts data as described earlier.

Change the folders back to the master drive where OE stores its data.

Import the .iaf file.

If you don't know where the .iaf file is, you can Search for it by clicking on START...Search and put .iaf into the search box.