LOST OR DISASSOCIATED CONTACTS, SUB-FOLDERS AND NOTES

[ahsoitgo]

I am overseas and i hired an IT person to romove some redundant data
(duplicate data files) from my hard drive to fee up space. He seemed careful
enough when disposing of any file, making sure to check with me. The bottom
line is, I have no contacts in my contact folder, nor my 30 sub-folders in my
inbox and no notes. I have all contacts on my blackberry plus notes. I have
searched and located all .pst files and placed them back on my outlook
folder, which now seems to reside in my C drive as a stand alone folder
(Cutlook). Before Outlook was located in a different location.

Placing all .pst files back into the outlook folder does not restore my
sub-folders or contacts. I am afraid to sync with the BB because I dont want
Outlook to mess up my BB contacts. (I have 3000 contacts). When I do a
search, i see all of the .pst files. Some seem duplicative because they have
the same name and kb. What can I do to get back a useful outlook? thanks

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

Placing all .pst files back into the outlook folder does not restore my
sub-folders or contacts.

That's because there is no "Outlook folder" for PST. Outlook doesn't care
where you put them as long as it has read/write access to them. It won't add
them to your mail profile automatically. You must do that, either with the
Mail applet in Control Panel (the Data Files button) or in Outlook, either
with File>Open>Outlook Data File or with File>Data File Management>Add

 

[ahsoitgo]

Brian:

That was extremely helpful. As I am adding each .pst file via this method,
it is adding folders to the outlook tree. I need them to merge into my inbox.
Do I just cut and paste old emails into my existing inbox? One of the .pst
files is just one that says personal folder but it has nothing in it. Safe to
delete?

 

[ahsoitgo]

To continue, now that I have added the data files back in, they are all
appearing and I see my real contacts folder. How do I consolidate and finally
end up with an outlook condition where I can sync with my BB and the info
goes to where we want it?

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

To continue, now that I have added the data files back in, they are all
appearing and I see my real contacts folder. How do I consolidate and
finally
end up with an outlook condition where I can sync with my BB and the info
goes to where we want it?

For the empty PST, right-click its root and choose Close. You can delete it
from disk later afer you close Outlook. Never delete a PST in Windows unless
it's not in a mail profile.

If you have located the PST that contains the folders you want to be your
default folders, you must make that PST the delivery location. Exactly how is
version-specific. For Outlook 2003 and earlier, click Tools>E-mail
Accounts>View or change existing e-mail accounts". In the "Deliver new e-mail
to the following location" drop-down at the lower left, select the PST that
contains those folders. Click Finish. For Outlook 2007, click Tools>Account
Settings>Data Files, select the PST containing those folders and click Set as
Default. Restart Outlook.

Now that the delivery location folders are set, for each of the other PSTs,
expand it. If any of the folders are NOT default folders, i.e., they are ones
you created with names other than those of the default folders Outlook
creates, you can copy the entire folder to the delivery location PST's root.
For each folder that
's named the same as a default folder, open that folder, select all the items
in it with Ctrl-A, then copy the selection to the corresponding folder in the
delivery location PST. Once you're done with a PST, you can right-click its
root and choose Close to remove it from the Navigation Pane.