What do I do with backed up .pst file

OK, it's been a while. Sorry to absent myself. Turns out that it was a motherboard issue, and basically the system bit the dust. The good news is that I was able to harvest most everything off of the HD and with the help of a Carbonite Restore I seem to be back in the game. Now here's my new question: I was able to save the .pst files. And, as you might expect, they are very large (4-6 GB). I have them saved to a Maxtor Mini drive. What do I do? I want to be able to get at the old email stuff. Suggestions, instructions? Thank you for everything previously.

Edit: I split this off from here: http://forums.whatthetech.com/problem_has_….html&st=15 as it's a new topic and would get lost in the other thread. - Rich

This MS article tells you how to import the .pst file: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287070

With my new system I have a new, SMALLER .pst file. If I import my previous LARGE .pst file, won't I be back into the same kettle of fish as before? Do I rename the old .pst file before I import it?

One way would be to create a 2nd E-mail account and import the large pst file there. That way you can keep you new, smaller pst size and still have access to your old data.

OK, here's what I did, contrary to your suggestion (which I regret). I imported the .pst file (3,618,833 KB) to my original email account. As you might suspect, the system has slowed to a crawl. I did a system restore to a date prior to my import of the .pst file, bust as you will probably already know, the .pst import was uneffected. Now what do I do? I want to follow your original suggestion, but at this point how do I clean the .pst file associated with my current email addy so that I can then add the second addy. I'm a mess! Sorry for the hassle!

Unfortunately it's seems that you overwrite your new data with the old one. In this case you have to use some recovery programs, but first: which files do you see on location drive:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook?

I do not see an Outlook folder?

If I search I do not find any .pst files and when I do a ctrl/alt/delete and check processes, I see (2) outlook.exe files running??

Have you setup Windows Explorer to show hidden and system files?

Open Control Panel then Folder Options and click on the View tab.
Select "Show hidden files and folders"
Uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types"
Uncheck "Hide protected operating system files (recommended)" (click Yes when prompted)
Click Apply and OK

Try the search again. On my XP Pro system with MS Office XP (2003 equiv I believe) it's in

C:\Documents and Setings\youraccount\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

What exactly do you want to do with the old Outlook data? Why is it so large?

Seems to me you need to spend the time to prune it, getting rid of stuff you don't need, especially mail with attachments you don't need.

I've had the same E-mail, migrated from computer to computer for about 15 years. It currently sits at 784MBl. Several times a year I prune it drastically by archiving older stuff that I will probably never need again but am afraid to get rid of. I regularly delete stuff that I don't need to keep and files other stuff in folders, getting it out of the In box.

If attachments are important, I detach them from the E-mail and save them somewhere else.

I followed your instructions. When I do a search the only.pst files that show are on my Maxtor mini drive that I used to download the LARGE .pst files that I had on my system that crashed. I followed your Windows Explore path and only found Outlook.NK2. I do not find any other .pst files on my system. I realize that the "old" .pst file is entirely too large. I would like to prune it, but I am not sure how to go about doing that? The importance of the large .pst file is that it basically has all of my career email files. Any ideas? TY!

Can't you use the account you imported the large .pst file into, to prune prune/delete mail you don't need? It may be slow, but once done, it should speed up again.

Any idea why the .pst files aren't showing?

Try the search again in location I recommended at Post #6: drive C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook (In location Ztruker recommended missing folder Local Settings). "user" means your account name.

Good luck