Restoring Contacts to BCM from an old SQL MDE Instance

[Lance]

Hi,

Can someone please provide some information on how I can go about restoring
business contacts for the BCM database from an old instance of a BCM SQL
database instance?

History:

BCM was not responding when a contact was selected, error message displayed
was "unable to initialise this form" (or something to this affect). Called
Microsoft Phone Support and they recommended installing Windows XP Pro SP2 as
the system was running Windows XP Pro SP1. I upgraded the OS to Windows XP
Pro SP2 and the same error was encountered.

Backed up the BCM database using the import/export wizard and saved them as
a PST file to a removable USB drive.

Backed up all Email and regular contacts to another PST file.

Uninstalled BCM
Uninstalled MS Office 2003 Small Business Edition SP1
Uninstalled SQL MDE

Reinstalled MS Office 2003 Small Business Edition SP1
Reinstalled MDE SQL
Reinstalled MS Office 2003 BCM

Created a new BCM database, attempted to import the PST files, this did not
work (I understand that this can not happen as the BCM database is backed up
as a MSBCM file).

Prior to uninstalling everything I attempted to recreate a new database from
within BCM this prompted me to backed the existing database, I did this
however when I attempted to import the MSBCM files there was no data.

I also want to know if I can import or copy accross or use the
MSSQL$MICROSOFTSMLBIZ data to restore the data?

Thanks,

 

[Lance]

I thought I would come back and post my solution to my own problem below.

It turns out that the SQL instance of the BCM database does not actually
contain the BCM data.

The BCM data is stored in Documents and Settings\username\Local
Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Business Contact Manager

The files end in *.mdf and *.ldf, these are the actual data files associated
with the BCM database.

To resolve the problem I experienced below I did the following:

1. Backed Up all Outlook Emails and Contacts to a PST File
2. Conducted a complete uninstall of Office 2003, BCM and SQL MSDE.
3. Reinstalled Office 2003, BCM and SQL MSDE.
4. Restored all backed up emails and contacts to Outlook
5. Restored all email settings to Outlook.
6. Created a new BCM database - this was blank
7. Navigated to Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\Business Contact Manager (ensure that hidden files are folders
are viewable)
8. Stopped the MSSQL$MICROSOFTBCM (or MICROSOFTBIZ) Service
9. Renamed the newly created database from newdatabase.mde to
newdatabase.mde.bak and newdatabase.lde to newdatabase.lde.bak
10. Copied the old database MDE and LDE files to a back up folder
11. Renamed the old database from olddatabase.mde to newdatabase.mde and
olddatabase.lde to newdatabase.lde
12. Started Outlook
13. Outlook went through initializing and finalizing the database

Now all BCM contacts have been restored and are accessible.

Hope this solution helps others who have experienced problems with BCM.

NB Always use the Database Management Utility to backup the BCM database to
a MSBCM compressed data file and not a PST file.

 

[Luther]

I thought I would come back and post my solution to my own problem below.

It turns out that the SQL instance of the BCM database does not actually
contain the BCM data.

The BCM data is stored in Documents and Settings\username\Local
Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Business Contact Manager

The files end in *.mdf and *.ldf, these are the actual data files associated
with the BCM database.

To resolve the problem I experienced below I did the following:

1. Backed Up all Outlook Emails and Contacts to a PST File
2. Conducted a complete uninstall of Office 2003, BCM and SQL MSDE.
3. Reinstalled Office 2003, BCM and SQL MSDE.
4. Restored all backed up emails and contacts to Outlook
5. Restored all email settings to Outlook.
6. Created a new BCM database - this was blank
7. Navigated to Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\Business Contact Manager (ensure that hidden files are folders
are viewable)
8. Stopped the MSSQL$MICROSOFTBCM (or MICROSOFTBIZ) Service
9. Renamed the newly created database from newdatabase.mde to
newdatabase.mde.bak and newdatabase.lde to newdatabase.lde.bak
10. Copied the old database MDE and LDE files to a back up folder
11. Renamed the old database from olddatabase.mde to newdatabase.mde and
olddatabase.lde to newdatabase.lde
12. Started Outlook
13. Outlook went through initializing and finalizing the database

Now all BCM contacts have been restored and are accessible.

Hope this solution helps others who have experienced problems with BCM.

NB Always use the Database Management Utility to backup the BCM database to
a MSBCM compressed data file and not a PST file.














- Show quoted text -

A couple of comments.

Your initial problem was probably a corrupt Outlook form cache. The
simple solution in that case would be deleting the cache and letting
Outlook rebuild it.

I'm not sure how you ended up exporting to a .PST file. The default
file format for exporting is .BCM. That's the one that preserves the
most data, and I don't see an option to export to .PST. I suspect you
may have exported the Outlook contacts to PST. That said, backing up
and restoring a database is faster than import export, and you get
back exactly the database you had when you backed it up.