Techy Question

[sjwahwah]

nialls way is prolly the quickest.. but, is not foolproof. for example... one cup of tea over a laptop can finish ya for good! I keep everything on dvd, inprivate stuff uploaded to my web server & small files on usb sticks... and really important stuff printed!

[Kingetter]

have maybe 1000 emails in my outlook express box and a heck of a lot of email addresses too. can't see printing as an option really.

[sjwahwah]

as I say.. you can copy them to a folder and save on cd.

[Bobinovich]

Without wanting to put myself out of business or reveal all the tricks of the trade, the following information should help anyone wanting to perform this task.

Outlook Express (OE) stores your e-mails in a sub-folder on your hard drive. To find out the exact path go into OE > Tools > Options > Maintenance tab then click on the Store Folder button. This will indicate that your files are stored in a folder called C:\Documents and Settings\<Name of your Login>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities - so just back them up to CD/DVD/external hard drive from there.

Your Address Book is usually in C:\Documents and Settings\<Name of your Login>\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book - the file to back up is name.adr

The main settings you will need to backup before restoring is your POP & SMTP e-mail servers (BT is mail.btinternet.com for both in your case), your username and password. That's enough information to get your e-mail system back up and running.

Finally it's a good idea to make sure you have all your driver CD's available before starting. Graphics card, sound card, chipset, modem/broadband, network card. If most of your connectors are grouped together then the chances are your main driver CD will be for the motherboard as it will cover most of the drivers required.

If you are at all in doubt of performing the backup, wipe & reinstall process the complete task can be performed by a knowledgable friend or a local IT consultant - just look here http://www.caithness-business.co.uk/category.php?cat=67 or in yellow pages.

Best of luck