Member Avatar for normanallen

Quite accidentally, I have managed to delete my address book in Outlook 2002 (Win XP SP2). How can I get it back?

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Brief summary tied to the thread: and have already done the obvious checks and found deleted-address-book traces. Next steps focus on safe recovery, alternate locations that often still contain contacts, and ways to verify a successful restore without overwriting anything.

Stop using the PC (or at least stop writing to the drive that held the contacts). Deleted files on NTFS are easiest to recover before they get overwritten. If there is any chance of recovery, attach another drive (USB) and run recovery tools from there, or remove the disk and connect it to a second machine as a secondary disk.

Look for Outlook data stores first. Outlook keeps contacts inside its personal folder files (.pst) for most profiles; those files often survive even when a separate address-book file is missing. Search the user profile folders for any .pst files, copy them to a safe drive, and then open them from a new Outlook profile to check for contacts. If a PST looks damaged, use the Inbox Repair Tool that ships with Office to scan and repair it before importing.

If the address-book file itself was deleted, use a reputable undelete tool (open-source or free options exist) and run a full/deep scan of the disk. Recover candidates to a different drive, then verify them before replacing anything in the user profile. When multiple recovered copies appear, pick the most recent intact file (by timestamp and size) and confirm it opens in the Address Book viewer or imports cleanly into Outlook.

If the environment used Exchange, a mobile sync, or third-party sync tools at any time, check those sources next — server/global address lists or synced devices often retain copies. For the future: export contacts regularly (CSV), keep copies of PST files on external media, and consider a simple backup schedule so a one-click accident does not become permanent loss.

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Member Avatar for caperjack

Quite accidentally, I have managed to delete my address book in Outlook 2002 (Win XP SP2). How can I get it back?

try a search for *.wab ,see if its still around ,if you find it then go to outlook and go to File ,import /addresssbook and direct it to the one you found .
Also did you check the recycle bin for it .

Member Avatar for normanallen

try a search for *.wab ,see if its still around ,if you find it then go to outlook and go to File ,import /addresssbook and direct it to the one you found .
Also did you check the recycle bin for it .

I have a wab and a wab~. Would I be right in thinking that I just need to copy the wab~ to wab and all will be well?

Member Avatar for caperjack

I have a wab and a wab~. Would I be right in thinking that I just need to copy the wab~ to wab and all will be well?

double click on the either one and see if they contain any web address first

Member Avatar for normanallen

Neither of them has anything in them

Member Avatar for caperjack

ok ,there gone but where ,just how did you accidentally delete them .did you look in the recycle bin ??

Member Avatar for normanallen

That's the stange thing, I think I might have accidentally clicked once, so there should have been soemthing in the recycle Bin, but there wasn't.
So, I have been looking at various File Recovery utils, so far of all the ones I've tried the "best" is 'Recover my Files'. This comes up with no less than five copies of the wab file in RECYCLER! (All with the same size and date/time) However, its shareware, and won't restore anything unless you pay. The others don't even mention them. Is it worth buying? Or can someone suggest something else?

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