Multiple Issues with Outlook 2007 Before AND After Reinstalling the program, and reinstalling Vista

Would love for someone to point me in the right direction, if possible.

1] I had a total of over 120 times that Outlook 2007 simply stopped working during a wide variety of things I was attempting to do, including use Calendar, Tasks, email, etc. Not even one of those had a suggested solution after looking in the events file in Vista. The sudden stop would each time be signaled by the "White Screen of Death" as I call it since the whole screen is white, opaque, and then is followed by Outlook not working.
What did I do? Everything I could think of, including running extensive spyware, antivirus, utility programs, checking everything imagineable. Then I reinstalled Windows Installer, then I did everything again.

2] Prior to a reformat of the Hard Drive I thought I had all my saved email, contacts, etc in PST files on my external HD.
I wiped the C drive, I think, then reinstalled Windows Vista Ultimate, reinstalled all apps, ran all util programs, reinstalled MS Office, including the SP2 from MS site.

3] Now, all the data I thought was backuped to the external HD is not showing at all. I can live with that IF I can have some faith that I can start all over, with Outlook being super stable. Shocked to already see the White Screen of Death happen after just two days. NO clues at all.

Any ideas?????