Hard Drive crash Help

[93495dan]

I had a hard drive crash. A local shop installed a new one and managed to save most all of the important data. They saved all of My Documents and my photos I think! What didn’t get retrieved were my Outlook email and several photos and files not in My Documents. I did a backup a year ago. I know, I know, I should be more vigilant but at least it has the photos and files I’m missing and the Outlook data I guess.
Question; How do I get into this backup data – I guess it is compressed some how – then select the files I want and the .pst for Outlook without doing a backup restore that will toss out all the photos and videos I have added since the backup a year ago?
Is there a program that will open the backup on the external USB drive (Iomega eGo)?
Do I get another new drive and temporarily disconnect the replaced drive now in the computer and connect the new drive then load windows and perform the backup re-store. When/if I restore the backup do I need to load the applications like Office, my GPS software, digital photo software before the backup so there is something to attach the backed up files to?
Do I freeze the crashed drive and reinstall temporarily in place of the new one and hope it lasts long enough to retrieve the files?
I am a novice so 1st, 2nd and 3rd walk through of what I should do is appreciated.
Or…..

Old Asus board and Intel CPU (2003 or 4)
Windows XP
SATA HD

Dan

 

[scorch]

Does the new hard drive have windows on it ? What media is the back up that the shop put it on, probally a cd or dvd can u open it and see the files? As for your outlook.. if you can access your bad hard drive long enough the default location for the .pst file is C:\Documents and Settings\user_id\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

 

[93495dan]

The new HD had windows XP loaded and that was about all. They just dumped whatever they could get off the bad drive onto the new drive. Most all that was recovered was in the windows folders like My Documents, My photos, Favorites, etc. I loaded all my lost programs (Office, GPS, photo software, etc) after I brought the computer home.

Can I unplug the new drive (I think they set this one up ide) and just plug in the old drive (sata) and see if I can read the old drive?

If a new drive is loaded with just Windows XP and the recovered data from the old drive is put on the new drive without the programs associated with some of the data and files, will the data transfer if the containing folders are not on the new drive?
I guess put another way, if you walk up to a file cabinet with a hand full of papers (office documents, gps files, some photos) how do you put all the papers in the cabinet if some of the folders associated with the papers are missing (software not loaded on the HD at the time)?

 

[scorch]

You can put the old drive back in but you could also just hook the drive in as a secondary and have them both in then copy data over. With outlook you need the backup .pst file then go into outlook and go to file then import....enter the location of the file and you should be good. Don't try to copy the entire old drive to the new, this could cause problems.