Other External products

[TimLaL1234]

I just "upgraded" my Toshiba Techra A9-ST9002 from Windows XP SP2 to SP3.
However, the upgrade failed!
I contacted Toshiba and was informed that the SP3 upgrade had somehow corrupted the AS!  :-(  (another benefit of using a MS based system)

Anyway, the Toshiba tech support recommended that I take the laptop to shop and see if they could save the data and then run the recovery process.
Hey, no problem!  I back up to my external One Touch Mini III religiously - at least every other to every 3rd day.  I could afford to lose the little bit of data that might not have been backed up.

I then, naively, decided that since I had a very recent backup, I would just go ahead and run the recovery disks (thereby wiping out all the data on the hard drive) and then run the restore utility for the Maxtor One Touch.
Imagine my dismay when I can't seem to find my large (several gig) Outlook 2003 pst file!

Researching through the KB, it appears that the Maxtor backup utility - whether "synching" or using the One Touch button, does not backup this rather "minor" file?
If that is true, why is it called a backup program if it picks and chooses which files are the important ones.
Please tell me that I am missing something - other than the most important files on my computer?

[Melonade]

well if you didnt back them up beforehand, that can be really bad... it means that they were maybe never backed up in the first place because i think these pst files can be avoided.  you might have had to do something specific to them.

like this

or this

bottom line - i dont know if the data is there.  you didnt check before?  sorry...

[MrButkus]

Maxtor only backups up My Documents file.

I would try one of the USB to removable HD adaptors.  You simply plug in your laptop's HD to this USB device. See if someone has a XP computer you can use. The PST files are hidden, so you'll have to use the Folders Option and unhide hidden files/folder on the computer that this USB is plugged into.

Once you see them, you can backup the entire "Microsoft" directory on your E-mail.

And copy anything else you may need.

Put the HD laptop back and get it running again.  Try a REPAIR of the XP first or start up in safe mode and try to uninstall SP3.

Create a new Outlook account, then in properties, find the folder (hidden) that has the new "Microsoft" file for this new account.

Simply replace the backup "Microsoft" folder with the one on the laptop that was just created.

Tools, Options, Maintenance - Store Folder   That shows were this folder is now located.

[zlatan24]

For working out given trouble you can use repair file pst. The tool has some important features allowing to work with big pst files. It uses modern methods of restoring outlook data.