OK PC guys!

[LaPera]

I have Windows XP SP2.....How can I retrieve info from a hard drive Slave (the primary hard drive is long gone)?

I hooked the slave HD up to another working computer and it's recognized (only) in "My Computer" on desktop, as "E" drive...no problem yet....

However, I want to retrieve emails & addresses from Outlook Express from the old HD, (again, now labeled "E").....

All I can do is open the contents of of the E drive (my old salve drive) and when I find Outlook Express in the programs of E and I click it on....Every icon clicked only pops up as the Outlook Express I have on my "C" drive of the working computer....

I can't get into the old addresses or emails that I need, I know they are stored on my old Hard drive (labeled "E") - because on my old computer both the primary drive and this slave drive each had a separate copy of windows installed primary XP Pro and slave XP Pro SP2....And I was able to go back and forth to either drive when booting up.

This working computer never asks to open in drive E at start up and E is only found in the contents of "My Computer".

Now would it make a difference if I added SP2 on my working computer hard drive C ? Right now the C drive has only XP Pro - No SP2 as my old slave drive (E) is formatted?

Any help would be Extremely Cool!

[Solon]

1. You'll have to import them from the Outlook Express directory on the E drive...

Using Outlook Express on your standard installation. In other words, open up Outlook Express, as normal, and see if you can import an address book, then search for the address book on the E drive, and import it.

[LaPera]

2. I'm using Firefox on both drives....

but I'll try finding and opening Internet Explorer (in drive C)and try that....Thanks

[Solon]

3. You shouldn't have to open Internet Explorer, just Outlook Express...

If you have an address book from the E drive installation of Outlook Express, then you can simply import it from Outlook Express on the C drive. If you are using a different program, such as Thunderbird, then it usually also will import Outlook Express's address book.

[LaPera]

5. It appears everything in Outlook on E

has been replaced with the Outlook from C and when I try to get messages from Outlook E I get Error reading " can't be imported MAPI Client".

Oh well.

[Xipe Totec]

4. You have to enable new disk on XP

Right click my computer,

select manage,

click on storage

click on disk management.

You should see the new drive here.

Right click on it and select activate.

This should get you close enough to the issue that you can figure it out the rest of the way.

Good luck.

[LaPera]

8. Everything went like you wrote except....

"Right click on it and select activate." "activate" isn't offered as an option when I right click on E

(It does however say status of E drive is healthy in another box above).

Is there somewhere else where I can find to activate?

Thanks

[Xipe Totec]

9. The activate is because my drive is dynamic

Your's probably isn't and that's a good thing, believe me.

You're in the right area. If you see the second drive, right click on it and see what it says, or check the menu options for a rescan drives selection.

You're looking for something that says: Hey, you have new hardware. Do you want to add it?

Another thing you might try is assigning a letter to the drive. That may trigger the "hey, new hardware message"

Sorry I can't be more specific. Once you fix the problem (as I did), the options will disappear.

[LaPera]

10. OK I see "mark partition as active", on C drive but

it's grey and can't be clicked because obviously it's already active....

And "mark partition as active", is not offered when I right-click on E....

Is it because I never partitioned E - I just hooked up E as a slave to an existing working C drive?

[Xipe Totec]

11. Try giving the drive a different letter.

You could have a drive letter conflict.

Look at the physical disk numbers. Your master will be disk 0, your slave will be disk 1.

It's disk 1 you want to change.

[LaPera]

12. Your absolutely correct it is disc 1

Your so confident it can be activated, that now I'm confident as well....I will try different things as you suggested and if it can be done I'll figure it out....

Thank you so much for your time...You're great!!

But you do state, stay away from clicking on "Dynamic Drive" I seen it and almost tried it....that would give me a whole new set of problems I would guess.

[Xipe Totec]

13. Dynamic drive is a one way street

it is a Microsoft specific format. Once you convert to dynamic drive, you cannot revert back to simple drive.

And tools such as partition magic and ghost do not support dynamic drives. You cannot run backups, you cannot do restores.

It is, in a word, a nightmare.

[Duer 157099]

6. I don't use OE, but maybe this will help

http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

7. OE stores its old messages in database files

They are in a specific location, and can be imported back into a new install of OE.

The exact path is (drive)\Documents and Settings\Your Profile\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\(string of hex numbers)\Microsoft\Outlook Express.

They are .dbx files, and you can import them by opening up OE, going to the FILE menu, then to IMPORT. Follow the wizard, browsing to the location as indicated in the path above.

Pretty easy, really.

Your Address Book follows another path- it is a .wab file that resides at (drive)\Documents and Settings\Your Profile\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book. It can be imported in the same manner.

[Dr. Strange]

14. Please don't use the term "slave drive."

The proper terms are "primary drive" and "not-so-primary drive."

Oh, I'm sorry, that's not the kind of "PC guy" you wanted. Never mind.

:)

[Xipe Totec]

15. How to restore Outlook Express items

The key is finding the outlook express file in the old drive. I use Office Outlook, so I'm not familiar with the file extensions used for outlook express. (Office Outlook uses .pst)

Step 1: Import messages from the backup folder

1. On the File menu, point to Import, and then click Messages.
2. In the Select an e-mail program to import from box, click Microsoft Outlook Express 5 or Microsoft Outlook Express 6, and then click Next.
3. Click Import mail from an OE5 store directory or Import mail from an OE6 store directory, and then click OK.
4. Click Browse, and then click the Mail Backup folder.
5. Click OK, and then click Next.
6. Click All folders, click Next, and then click Finish.

Step 2: Import the Address Book file

1. On the File menu, click Import, and then click Other Address Book.
2. Click Text File (Comma Separated Values), and then click Import.
3. Click Browse.
4. Select the Mail Backup folder, click the address book backup.csv file, and then click Open.
5. Click Next, and then click Finish.
6. Click OK, and then click Close.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/270670