How to get Outlook Express emails off old drive

[Scott Shepherd]

I have a family member who decided to get a used computer (don't ask). In doing so, they took their existing computer there, the person took the old hard drive out and installed it as an slave (looks like they did that properly).

However, when I clicked on the old drive, I got a nice message that it found several virus' on it. After they had managed to get onto the main drive, and 6 hours later, I wasn't able to get the thing all cleaned up with both drives plugged in. So I finally unplugged the old drive, got the virus' off the new drive, got it all working again (for the most part), and left the old drive unplugged.

Only thing they want is their old email off the old drive. They were using outlook express.

Any idea how to get that off there and onto the new drive? Is there a file or location I can copy over and then have it import it all?

It's all a bit of a mess. I'm fairly confident that with the new drive clean, I can plug the old one back up and get it worked out as well, which will allow me to access all the files.

[Tom Veatch]

There are several files. Use the search function on the old drive to find all files with the ".dbx" extension. Those are the files you need. They will probably be in the "<old disk>:\Documents and Settings\<userid>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\<identity GUID>\Microsoft\Outlook Express" folder.

[Sonny Edmonds]

Format it, and tell them the virus ate it, sorry. ;) :D

Back in the 1990's I survived the klex 32 virus by formatting, departioning, repartioning, formating, and re installing my programs.
Lost a lot of stuff, but not my hard drive or compooter like many did.
Not sure how I'd kick butt on a virus now days with this XP, other than restore to an earlier time.
That worked for a niece's computer that got some sort of weird thing that ran away with IE and opened millions of browser windows.

Used computers = Somebody else's problems. :mad:

[Rob Cooper]

Outlook files are Microsoft Office Outlook Personal Folders (.pst) extensions. This is the only data file for all outlook items. You should be able to find it by searching for the extension. Move the file over to the new computer's outlook default file location. You can find the default location under account settings/data files.

[Dave Odekirk]

I would use the Outlook Express Import Wizard. Just click "File", "Import", then "Messages". The next dialog box will ask what program the messages were stored with, most likely Outlook Express 6. In the next window select "Import mail from an OE6 store directory". Click OK, and in the next window, click the Browse button to find the folder where the .dbx files Tom mentioned are located, select the folders you want to import, click next, and watch your messages get imported. If you copied the .dbx files to your new hard drive, you may have to name the parent folder where you put them "Outlook Express" so OE knows those are message files.

[Scott Shepherd]

Thanks to all, I'll give it a try and report back :)

I appreciate the help.

[Alex Krenvalk]

Heard about tool which is able to do this things and possible more than-outlook express folder repair (http://www.recoverytoolbox.com/outlook_express_folder_repair.html),as far as i know tool is free,it scans Outlook Express default folder and finds dbx files, that correspond to your mailbox, if they were not deleted,will start to parse your mailbox and retrieve messages, when Outlook Express folder repair is possible,permits to preview the messages, that were successfully restored from dbx files,can start the process of email recovery and Outlook Express repair folders right after its corruption, it considerably increases the chances,will save separate files in eml format, just click on the Save e-mail(s) button and finish the process,repairing Outlook Express folders may take a lot of time, please be patient and do not interrupt the analysis.

[Prashun Patel]

Outlook files are Microsoft Office Outlook Personal Folders (.pst) extensions. This is the only data file for all outlook items. You should be able to find it by searching for the extension. Move the file over to the new computer's outlook default file location. You can find the default location under account settings/data files.

That's only for Outlook.

OExpress uses dbx files.

[Prashun Patel]

Search the hd for .dbx files.

IMHO, it's best to reformat.