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I have a new machine with a 40gb hd that is partitioned into a 4gb c-drive, 15gb d-drive, and the rest in e-drive. I had Win98 SE on the c-drive and most of my applications on the d-drive. I did an upgrade to XP home that failed with one minute to go. A couple of hours with the help desk left me worse off. Then I installed XP to the d-drive, so I have some functionality. Now I want to put XP on the c-drive and delete it off the d-drive.

I’m thinking that I should copy everything from the c-drive to the e-drive as a backup, reformat the c-drive and do a full XP install, delete XP from the d-drive, then reinstall all my software. Does this make sense?

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Thanks, Ian. Your additions make sense. Speaking of data, do you have any idea what might have happened to my Outlook 2002 database (.pst file) during the upgrade?

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Explorer can’t find a .pst file anywhere. I also tried searching for text strings that I knew would be in email text, with nothing found. So either it was deleted, which doesn’t seem likely, or it is in some kind of compressed form.

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They are hiddenin the newer versions so you must turn on the system files and then you should be able to find it.

Depending on what OS and what version of Outlook these filese will be in different locations.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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See above re: OS and version of Outlook. I included system files and hidden files and folders in the search.

Why would an XP OS upgrade mess with Office files?

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“Why would an XP OS upgrade mess with Office files?”
Each user has their own copy of PST, normal template, temp, internet temp files and etc., which will be placed in the user account under “Documents and settings”

If I remember right in Windows 98 and Office 2002 PST files are placed in the Outlook folder under
Windows
Application Data
Microsoft
Outlook

If you are using “profiles” and or any other means of sharing the computer they may be else where.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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That path doesn’t exist anymore…

I did find a folder called Undo that contains a 367mb file called Backup.cab. However, when I open that file in Explorer it shows only a partial listing of the files within it. Any idea how I can discover what else is in this file?

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try this
Windows
Local Settings
Application Data
Microsoft
Outlook

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Ian, I did as you suggested and everything is back to normal, except all my email seems to be gone forever, unless it’s hidden somewhere in the 370meg backup.cab file. However, the XP that was on my D-drive has left some vestige that shows up as a choice during the boot-up sequence. Do you know how to get rid of that as well?

Many thanks to you and DaveA for the help.

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Hi
If the XP option appears on boot up, it is an entry in a file on the active partition called boot.ini. Save a copy of this first, then remove the hidden etc. attributes. Edit it in in Notepad to remove the line you no longer want. Replace the attributes and Save it. Incidentally, whilst you’re in this file, you can set the count-down timer so you don’t have to wait as long before making a selection. I find 8 secs is about right.

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That did the trick. Thanks.

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