Recover address book after quick format?

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Blizzard596

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I recently reinstalled XP on a system but forgot to backup the Windows address book. I just did a "quick format" so a lot of the old files are still recoverable. I never saved the addresses as a "WAB" file, so I just don't know what sort of file format, if any, to look for. Does anyone know where Windows stores the addresses by default?
 
I was not aware that the the address book was part of windows. I thought that it was installed and created with outlook express.
Anyway, I think that if you didn't export the data it is probably gone.
BUt to place to look is systemroot\program files\outlook express
and the file you are looking for is named "~" that file contains the address book data from what I can tell...
Good Luck
 
You're probably right that address book does come with outlook express rather than XP, but since outlook express is included with my copy of XP (automatically installed) I didn't think about that. Thanks for the help. I'll see what I can do.
 
The next time u have to run the quick recovery, rename ur windows, document and settings and program files folder to some thing else. Otherwise all ur data would be overwritten by the folders for new identity.
 
i think outlook express comes with every windows OS since win98 FE so they all would have the adress book. what recovery software are you using?

The Windows Address Book used by Outlook Express is normally located in the [Windows]\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book folder.

probably:
C:\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book
 
I used Ontrack Easy Recovery Professional v.6.0 and did find the addresses in C:\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book. The only problem now is that the file is corrupt.
 
thats not good. have you tried to open it with wordpad? i have no clue whether or not that file is a text document, but it's worth a shot.

if these addresses are important to you try searching for more forums and places that would have more knowledge on this kind of recovery.

Blizzard596 i know it is too late, but next time export your addresses to a DOS comma separated values file. exports the other items that you want to keep also like your calendar and inbox. these files are small enough to fit on a floppy.
 
I can open it with wordpad and see all the address, but but the names and addresses are in separate paragraphs (names not matched with addresses) and the whole file is cluttered with weird ascii characters. So far all I've found on recovery is "Address Book Recovery 1.0" from www.oemailrecovery.com. It recovers the address just like I need, however, it's a demo version that only recovers the first 10 address. Of course I'd rather not have to buy anything, so I was hoping to find a freeware program, but so far no luck.
 
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