Computer help wanted, not Stag related-sorry

[Ian Durrant]

Hats off to you Ian! Happened to me a few years ago and no-one on the planet could do that! Plenty of entries on internet forums though to warn about the problem. Perhaps things have moved on. I think it was XP and Office 2000 when I lost everything. Tried the IT dept at work as well.

I admit I wasn't using windows back in 2000 as I was a Unix systems consultant then, but we certainly do it all the time and I am pretty sure in 2005 we were importing outlook 2000 and XP into 2003,though my memory might be a little hazy here. You weren't using outlook with exchange were you? That is impossible because the files aren't stored in pst format but in ost format and even then only if outlook is in cached exchanged mode.

[ukbiggles]

......Also, be aware that, if you have a crash, even your own Outlook when re-installed won't be able to read its previous own .pst file, so just saving the .pst file doesn't do any good, it has to be a .pst file created as an export or back-up.

Hi Drew, I've not had this problem with .pst files and I use them at home and at work. At work, all my e-mails since 2000 are in different .pst files on my PC and I never have any trouble opening them up with Outlook, even newer versions of Outlook than the one used to create them. Also all my .pst files are backed up to the work servers, and I have successfully restored them all from there onto new PC's with newer versions of Outlook after a PC crash/replacement. Not sure why you have suffered with this.

Going back to Jeff's question, if you simply want to keep just a few interesting e-mails, you can always use the File, Save As function in Outlook to save individual e-mails. You can then either save as simple text files (.txt), or in an Outlook format (.msg). To select these options, use the drop down box on the "Save As Type:" field near the bottom of the Save As window. You could save these in a normal Windows folder and back this up like you do your photos etc. Text files can be read by almost anything. Outlook format will retain the outlook format but can only be read by Outlook. To re-read mails stored in this way, simply click on them and Outlook will start up automatically

Really just depends how may you want to keep. If it's a few, then this may be OK for you,. If it's quite a lot, then I'd backup the .pst file itself.

Cheers

Gord

[dasadrew]

Hi Drew, ..... Not sure why you have suffered with this.

Cheers

Gord

After all those years I think I just found out why that problem was so prevalent at the time and why I suffered. All of my back-up copies were on CD's or DVD's and, even the tips and tricks pages to this day say NEVER copy your .pst to a read-only device.

In those days (2003) portable external drives were virtually non-existent, so everyone was making copies of their hard disks to CD's. I guess that was what my problem was and why so many suffered from it. Would also explain why it is never mentioned nowadays as I guess everyone has a Western Digital external drive or whatever!

It does make me wonder though, why Outlook has three built-in back up possibilities (Back-up; Export; Archive) when a simple copy of the file would suffice. Maybe a relic of the days when CD based file copies didn't work??

Anyway, my head's hurting now so I'm off out to the garage to paint my pedal box!

[ukbiggles]

. .....Anyway, my head's hurting now so I'm off out to the garage to paint my pedal box!

Probably more fun too!

Gord

[Jeff]

Hi Drew, I've not had this problem with .pst files and I use them at home and at work. At work, all my e-mails since 2000 are in different .pst files on my PC and I never have any trouble opening them up with Outlook, even newer versions of Outlook than the one used to create them. Also all my .pst files are backed up to the work servers, and I have successfully restored them all from there onto new PC's with newer versions of Outlook after a PC crash/replacement. Not sure why you have suffered with this.

Going back to Jeff's question, if you simply want to keep just a few interesting e-mails, you can always use the File, Save As function in Outlook to save individual e-mails. You can then either save as simple text files (.txt), or in an Outlook format (.msg). To select these options, use the drop down box on the "Save As Type:" field near the bottom of the Save As window. You could save these in a normal Windows folder and back this up like you do your photos etc. Text files can be read by almost anything. Outlook format will retain the outlook format but can only be read by Outlook. To re-read mails stored in this way, simply click on them and Outlook will start up automatically

Really just depends how may you want to keep. If it's a few, then this may be OK for you,. If it's quite a lot, then I'd backup the .pst file itself.

Cheers

Gord

Thanks Gordon, that has worked with one e mail but can I save a folder of say 30 e mails without having to save each one individually, if not I may as well copy each one at a time into word and save in a seperate folder which I was trying to avoid.

Thanks for your help by the way.

Jeff.

[Ian Durrant]

Hi Jeff,

I am not really clear what you are trying to achieve. if you just want to back up your emails copy the pst folder to your backup drive. If thats not what you mean, I don't understand what you are trying to achieve? why is it not good enough just to leave those folders in outlook?

[Jeff]

Hi Jeff,

I am not really clear what you are trying to achieve. if you just want to back up your emails copy the pst folder to your backup drive. If thats not what you mean, I don't understand what you are trying to achieve? why is it not good enough just to leave those folders in outlook?

Hello Ian,

I have backed them up to .pst folder but when I tried to open them, I couldn't.

I don't have confidence in any pc and if my pc crashes at any time (which it has) I do not want to lose certain important e mails/folders, so would be nice to have a back up I can retrieve if I was to say, get a replacement pc.

I know they are stored on the main server(Yahoo/ g mail etc) but that would be such a long winded way of getting them back.

I just hoped a simple backup system like every other file/folder would be possible but it seems to be not that simple.

Jeff.

[Ian Durrant]

Hello Ian,

I have backed them up to .pst folder but when I tried to open them, I couldn't.

I don't have confidence in any pc and if my pc crashes at any time (which it has) I do not want to lose certain important e mails/folders, so would be nice to have a back up I can retrieve if I was to say, get a replacement pc.

I know they are stored on the main server(Yahoo/ g mail etc) but that would be such a long winded way of getting them back.

I just hoped a simple backup system like every other file/folder would be possible but it seems to be not that simple.

Jeff.

Your absolutely right not to trust any PC or hard drive. backups are absolutely essential.

However if you have backed up to pst file then that is all that is required. Always have at least two copies of your data, your backup drive is no safer than your PC, in fact it is less safe as it can be dropped which isn't something that likely to happen with your PC.

I suspect you are expecting to be able to read your pst file as if it were a text file. That's not how it works. pst files can only be read and interpreted by outlook. Try backing up to .pst then using the "file" menu in outlook and "open" then locate your backup pst file and you will be able to read it. (I think that should work, I don't have windows machine in front of me to double check, this is a Linux machine).

When moving to a new PC simply export your outlook data using the "file" menu and then reimport it into outlook in the same way on the new machine.

It actually is a backup in the same way that every other folder is backed up, its just that this file uses outlook to read it and a text file use notepad and word files use word etc. Are you expecting to be able to doube click the pst file and read it somehow? If so then its not designed that way.

I hope that makes some sense.

Kind regards
Ian

[Jeff]

Thanks Ian,

That makes absolute sense, I have been trying to open the .pst files as normal.

I think I get it now, thanks so much for your help.

Jeff.

[Ian Durrant]

No problem Jeff, glad to be of assistance!