Email Backup

If you are using outlook you just need to create .pst file this file will contain all your contacts and emails. Then when your new computer is built add the .pst file to your new outlook and you are all good. There is a similar procedure with lotus and possibly in outlook express.

If you happen to be using Outlook Express, you can just locate the Address Book and the Outlook Express folders in your profile in the folder C:\Documents and Settings and copy them as they are to a temporary directory in your new hard drive.

Start Outlook Express from the new hard drive, close it and replace the Address Book and the newly created Outlook Express folder in your profile directory in C:\Documents and Settings with the versions copied from your old hard drive.

Similarly, if you use Thunderbird, you can copy the profile from C:\Documents and Settings\{your profile}\Application Data\Thunderbird with the address book and the messages.

Why can't you use both HDDs? The SATA will use it's own cable, so you should be able to keep your old HDD for a secondary unit. In doing that, you could just copy the files over to the new one once it is installed. Don't forget to set your boot priority in BIOS to point to the SATA first. Both of the above ideas are easier than this, but I personally prefer having 2+ HDDs for redundancy.

Well as I'm lazy I tend to use the Export/Import features in both Outlook and Outlook Express all you do is left click on File and then scroll down to Import/Export and follow your nose to create a temp directory or even a backup directory.

You could also just pickup the folders directly from your My Documents Folder and then place them to a temp folder and then Import them into your E-Mail client. Either way will work easily and I too would retain the old HDD for backup purposes even if you fit it to a USB caddy and don't have it constantly connected to the computer.

The sad fact of life is that HDD do die and what's worse is the cost of data recovery if you are relying on that drive to keep working.

Col