recover my Windows Address Book

I have about 12,000 addresses in my Outlook Express address book organized into almost 50 folders. I highlighted about 200 new addresses in the "Main Identity's Contacts" folder and dragged them into one of the 50 sub folders. I accidently dragged them into the wrong folder and didn't want to go through the trouble of rebuilding the folder and sorting out the addresses that did not belong in that folder so I shut my computer off within a second of realizing that I made this error so as to interrupt the task and minimize the damage done. After I reboot my computer, outlook express was no longer able to open the address book (it said that the address book was not available). I tried importing the address book into Eudora and other e-mail programs and it would import all 12,000 addresses but without the folder organization I had created over years.

When I try opening the Address Book independently of Outlook Express, the hard drive runs endlessly and it keeps working and working, but is never able to open the address book. I am not able to compose new messages in Outlook Express (presumably because it accesses the address book in case I want a contact from it?).

I am currently importing all my mail and address book into Outlook 2002 as I write this, but based on what I've read in the knowledge base, my folder organization will not be preserved in Outlook 2002. I downloaded an address book recovery tool from CNET, but that tool was only able to recover the contacts without the folder organization.

I copied the WAB file (almost 7MB) and backed it up into a different folder. How can I fix this file so that I can access it again and use the contents of the address book organized into the 50 folders?

I'll try to relate how I did mine and kept the folders intact...it was a
trial and error thing, and did it once, so may not get it right.

First, I did like you and imported the addresses from my 5.5 address book I
had already backed up....but like you noticed, all the addresses imported
minus the folders. I really didn't feel like creating new folders, so tried
another thing.

Since this new laptop was set up under my name, I copied the old address
book that used to be administrator into my "name" folder in Document and
Settingsmyname folderApplication DataMicrosoftAddress Book.

When I opened OE and checked the addresses, all were there, but under the
main identity. That's not what I wanted so started to look at the way
things were set up under the computer user identity and noticed there
already was a WAB with my name. I renamed that WAB since it had no
addresses in it, and copied my old 5.5 Address book to my name.wab.

I then created a new identity in OE with my name since I like to keep "Main"
pure for various reasons. Once I had an OE identity, the WAB appeared the
way I wanted, folders intact...and a lot of time saved.

I then got brave and tried to import my OE 5.5. rules based on reading so
much about being able to do it in the old 5.5 newsgroup. I had exported my
rules from my 5.5 identity....but when I imported the reg file, it created a
new identity in the registry...matching the identity number of the old 5.5
identity. I deleted that and started again, but this time, did a
find/replace in the rules reg file replacing all the old identity numbers
with the new one on this computer. After that, reimported the rules reg
file and it worked.

The only thing I had to do was to go through each of the rules and point
them to the folder, since all the folders were red "Xd" out. Still, doing
that saved a lot of time over recreating all the rules I had...like my
address book...a lot of entries.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
--
~redyrmann~

"mike" wrote in message
...
| I have about 12,000 addresses in my Outlook Express address book organized
into almost 50 folders. I highlighted about 200 new addresses in the "Main
Identity's Contacts" folder and dragged them into one of the 50 sub folders.
I accidently dragged them into the wrong folder and didn't want to go
through the trouble of rebuilding the folder and sorting out the addresses
that did not belong in that folder so I shut my computer off within a second
of realizing that I made this error so as to interrupt the task and minimize
the damage done. After I reboot my computer, outlook express was no longer
able to open the address book (it said that the address book was not
available). I tried importing the address book into Eudora and other e-mail
programs and it would import all 12,000 addresses but without the folder
organization I had created over years.
|
| When I try opening the Address Book independently of Outlook Express, the
hard drive runs endlessly and it keeps working and working, but is never
able to open the address book. I am not able to compose new messages in
Outlook Express (presumably because it accesses the address book in case I
want a contact from it?).
|
| I am currently importing all my mail and address book into Outlook 2002 as
I write this, but based on what I've read in the knowledge base, my folder
organization will not be preserved in Outlook 2002. I downloaded an address
book recovery tool from CNET, but that tool was only able to recover the
contacts without the folder organization.
|
| I copied the WAB file (almost 7MB) and backed it up into a different
folder. How can I fix this file so that I can access it again and use the
contents of the address book organized into the 50 folders?