Lost all email address in contacts

"Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]" wrote:

Open your most recent PST backup with FileOpenOutlook Data File. Open the
Contacts folder that PST contains, select all the Contacts in it, and copy
them to the main Contacts folder. You'll need to handle duplicates somehow.
One fairly easy way is to delete the contents of the main Contacts folder
before copying the enteries in the backup Contacts folder. If there are
entries in the main Contacts folder that aren't in the backup because you
added them after the backup, then copy those to the backup Contacts folder
first so you have a complete set. You can re-add those mail addresses
manually, as there shouldn't be many that need fixing.

Brian,

I owe you an apology. I didn’t see this reply, I only seen the next one
down where you ask how I made my backups. If I had seen this posting, then I
would have understood what you meant about "Coping" the contacts. Russ got
under my skin a bit with his condescending attitude, and when I went back to
re-read your reply, I only read what I thought was the only one that you talk
about restoring the contacts. Sorry about that, this one must had slipped
in and I didn't even notice.

Thanks for your help.

Daryl

Repeating: any valid backup file can simply be opened, allowing you to
retrieve only the information you need to restore, not the entire file. You
backup your data file by simply making a copy of it. I have no idea what
"vista backup and restore" is or does, but I would never use it in lieu of
creating valid backups of data files.
It is quite well documented that the address book view is simply a view of
electronic addresses in the Contacts Folder and should never be used for
editing or manipulating Contact data.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
"Daryl Rose" wrote in message
...
"Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]" wrote:

If you had a valid backup of your Outlook data file, you could simply
open
it and retrieve your Contacts form the Contacts Folder--precisely the way
Brian told you. What you have instead only you could know. You created
your
backup.
--


Russ,

Thank you for both of your replys, but if you had read my enitre post you
would have read that I did have a valid backup. I perform weekly backups
of
my data. The only way that I see that I can recover is to recover the
entire outlook.pst file, and that would over write much of the changes
that
I've done over the week. What Brain suggest did not work.

I just went back and re-read what Brian wrote. Perhaps you can clearify
for
me the steps that he told me.

Brian wrote:
If you copy your PST (the correct way to make
a backup), then open the most recent with FIleOpenOutlook Data File.
Your
contacts will be in that PSTs Contacts folder.

1. What is the correct why to make the backup?
I let vista backup & restore backup the .pst file, is that not the correct
way to backup the data?
2. When I FIleOpenOutlook Data File I receive an error telling me that
outlook.pst can't be opened. Well that makes sence since I already have
it
open in order to do the FIleOpenOutlook Data

Now, what part of this am I getting wrong?

And as for being 100% user error, I disagree with that. If the Contacts is
where I store all of the contact information, then why does Outlook use
the
"Address Book"? And don't tell me that it doesn't, because I see the names
and email addresses listed in the address book. As soon as I was able to
recover my email address the entire address book was populated again. And
when I click on the "To", or "CC" or "BCC", guess what comes up? Not my
contacts, but the address book. So it clearly uses an address book.

So once again thank you for your helpful replys Russ. Your help is
alway's
apprecated. :-)

Daryl