Microsoft Outlook 2003/2007 recovery help after format please?

My situation:

A family member wanted a laptop restored to stock conditions--after backing up pertinent data, I proceeded with a quick format, OS + App reinstall... only to find out that important contact and calendar/scheduling information was not saved!!

Setup: same XP prof. OS, partitioning, programs (outlook 2003 in particular), (matching) account-name.

I've tried several recovery tools (Migo's recover lost data %26 recover my files). The latter is unique in that it pulls up both written and overwritten files, yet I've been able to discover 0 .wab/.pst files that should have been in the appdata/microsoft/outlook folder... I should have at least found overwritten files. Anyone have suggestions for recovering Outlook files after formatting?

If we start Outlook configuration from scratch, will any contact data be retrieved if they enter the email address they used previously?

TIA for any and all help provided!

Microsoft Outlook 2003/2007 recovery help after format please?product key

In Outlook 2003 the files are stored in two files: Outlook.pst and archive.pst

Both are located in:

C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\

Local Settings\Application Data\

Microsoft\Outlook

If those files exist when you start your new installation of Outlook, then you should see all the emails, calendar, etc.

However, I have found I get more reliable results in Outlook finding the old data if I do it this way:

When I do a backup/restore I move the good .pst files (to the desktop, an external drive, anywhere out of the folder they are in) then start the new installation of Outlook and let it create a new blank .pst file, then copy the old one back into that folder.

Good luck.

Microsoft Outlook 2003/2007 recovery help after format please?triumph

I just came accross this website, you can find information on data recovery:

http://the-hard-drive-data-recovery.blog...