I’ve done this quite a few times, and often I need to do it for a PC with a damaged motherboard, so all the usual advice about exporting and importing from within outlook is useless.

Here is what I do (instructions are for XP, but I’ll also include some information for Vista/Win7):

Connect the hard drive to a working PC.

You might need to change the folder view options within windows explorer, so that you can see hidden / system folders… just remember to change these settings back when you are finished.

Copy the following folders (and their contents!) to a safe place (and don’t mix the contents together!):

• c:documents and settings{username}Application DataMicrosoftOutlook
• c:documents and settings{username}Application DataMicrosoftAddress Book
• c:documents and settings{username}Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
• The Vista / Windows 7 location start as: c:users{username}Appdataetc and c:users{username}AppdataLocaletc

On the new PC, install microsoft outlook, start outlook, setup your email account (but don’t download any emails yet… in fact, make sure you are disconnected from the internet). If you are not sure about your internet settings yet, just use some dummy data to start with.

Shutdown outlook… you might need to check with task manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) to make sure there is no outlook.exe process running… end the task if its still running.

Now copy the contents of the folders you saved into the equivalent locations on the new PC… you will need to over-write the existing files in the new locations… they shouldn’t have anything, since you just created the files when you started outlook (and didn’t download any emails)… if you downloaded new emails, then they will be deleted by this process.

Now when you start outlook again, it will have all your original emails and contacts list from the original PC…

If you haven’t done so already, then make sure your email account details / password are correct.

Copying your email account details/password is complicated, so its easier to just re-enter those details.