How to restore missing contact list in Outlook Express

[Faakhir]

Unfortunately, my 80 gb hard-disk crashed and because of this most of my important data is likely to get vanished. However, the good news is that through the booting disk, I can access some of the drive infrastructure. I cannot boot from the harddrive but I can access some of the files. I noticed that the contact list is been missing from my Outlook Express. Now, the question is how can I restore the contacts in my Outlook Express ?

any ideas.....

[Eric B]

Outlook Express stores contacts in a Microsoft Windows® Address Book file with an extension of .wab. The name of the file is based on your Windows logon name.
For example : A username may have a Windows logon name of ABC, then the Windows Address Book file would be ABC.wab.
This file is saved at C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book.

Outlook cannot use a Windows Address Book (.wab) file, but it can import contacts from it. The most common way that Outlook contacts are stored is in your e-mail server mailbox, in a Personal Folders file (.pst), or in a Personal Address Book (.pab).

To use your Outlook Express contacts in Outlook, you must do one of the following:

• Import the Outlook Express contacts into the Contacts folder in Outlook.
• Export the Outlook Express contacts to a Personal Address Book accessible in Outlook.

[Glenny]

Outlook Address Book and Outlook Contacts both are the part of Outlook Express which seems to be same but there's a minor difference.
Address Book is a compilation of the different address lists (you might have stored in Outlook) such as a Personal Address Book (.pab), LDAP Internet directories, the Global Address List (GAL), or other third-party address books.
Contacts is just one of the address lists that make up the Address Book.

The Personal Address Book has a .pab file extension and its default location is
"C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst"

[JonathanD]

The outlook address book has a file extension .Wab. In order to restore the file, make a search of all the files with extension .Wab (*. wab) on the harddisk.

Another method is by using the registry located under:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ WAB \ WAB4 \ Wab File Name

Go to Start > select Run > type regedit. Once the file located, copy and paste it into another record to complete the backup.