{"id":196,"date":"2013-01-14T21:44:24","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T02:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/triplescomputers.com\/blog\/?p=196"},"modified":"2013-01-14T21:47:51","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T02:47:51","slug":"solution-recover-an-outlook-2007-business-contact-manager-database-from-a-failed-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.triplescomputers.com\/blog\/casestudies\/solution-recover-an-outlook-2007-business-contact-manager-database-from-a-failed-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"Solution: Recover an Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager Database from a failed PC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Computer dead? \u00a0Don&#8217;t have a good backup of your Business Contact Manager data?<\/p>\n<p>This is a serious problem. \u00a0It&#8217;s not an easy thing to find a solution to, either; those that exist only seem to work for some people, and only under particular circumstances, too. \u00a0So in this post, I&#8217;ve set out to provide a solution that should work for\u00a0<em>everyone<\/em>&#8211;hopefully.<\/p>\n<p>Just one preliminary note: <strong>this only pertains to the 2007 version of Outlook<\/strong>. While it may work in other versions, I haven&#8217;t tested it there.<\/p>\n<p>Okay. \u00a0So you&#8217;ve got a dead computer (maybe yours, maybe your client&#8217;s), and you have the files recovered from the drive&#8211;perhaps from a backup. \u00a0But unfortunately, as simple as it ought to be, recovering a Business Contact Manager database is far from it. \u00a0You can&#8217;t simply retrieve the files and then import them somehow. \u00a0In fact, from my recent experience, you can&#8217;t even make it work unless you follow a\u00a0<em>very\u00a0<\/em>specific order of operations.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how it&#8217;s done:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>You first need the\u00a0<strong>*.mdf\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0<strong>*.ldf\u00a0<\/strong>files from within the Business Contact Manager Local Application Data\/%LocalAppData% directory. \u00a0<em>Be sure to copy only those files which correspond to your current database\u00a0<\/em>(probably those with the most recent Modified date). \u00a0You can retrieve those from the failed drive (or backup) by navigating here:\n<ul>\n<li>On XP, they&#8217;re in\u00a0<strong>%USERPROFILE%\\Local Settings\\Application Data\\Microsoft\\Business Contact Manager<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>On Vista\/7, they&#8217;re in\u00a0<strong>%LOCALAPPDATA%\\Microsoft\\Business Contact Manager<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Copy these files to the new PC and place them in a temporary location on the new PC (such as the user&#8217;s Windows Desktop).<\/li>\n<li>Install Office 2007 (if it isn&#8217;t already installed), along with the Business Contact Manager.\n<ul>\n<li>If Office is already installed and you&#8217;ve already configured Business Contact Manager,\u00a0<strong>you have no choice\u00a0<\/strong>but to completely remove everything related to Business Contact Manager. \u00a0That means\u00a0<em>everything:<\/em>\u00a0Business Contact Manager 2007, and\u00a0<em>all <\/em>listed software related to SQL Server 2005.<em>\u00a0<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Install\u00a0<a title=\"Microsoft's Download Page for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3\" href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/download\/details.aspx?id=14752\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3<\/a> (you&#8217;ll need the very latest version just in case the files are from a later version than the freshly-installed one, which is likely).<\/li>\n<li>Open Outlook 2007. \u00a0Start the Business Contact Manager wizard and<strong> instruct it to create a new database <em>with the same name as the old database<\/em>.<\/strong> \u00a0If you&#8217;re unsure what the old database was named, it&#8217;s easy to tell: simply take whatever text comes before the .mdf and .ldf (it should be identical), and that&#8217;s your database name. \u00a0It&#8217;s very important that the names match!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Immediately <\/strong>close Outlook after the database creation is complete.<\/li>\n<li>Stop the\u00a0MSSQL$MSSMLBIZ service.\n<ul>\n<li>You can either use the services.msc interface to do so or open a Command Prompt and type\u00a0<strong>sc stop &#8220;MSSQL$MSSMLBIZ&#8221;\u00a0<\/strong>at the prompt (then press ENTER).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Copy the .mdf and .ldf files from the old PC (wherever you saved them) to the Business Contact Manager working directory on the new PC, <strong>overwriting the new files with the old ones<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>It should be obvious where the working directory is located. \u00a0If you&#8217;re unsure, re-read the sub-points on Step 1.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Set permissions on the .mdf and .ldf files to allow Full Control to Everyone. \u00a0<a title=\"How to take ownership and set permissions on files\" href=\"http:\/\/forum.thewindowsclub.com\/windows-tips-tutorials-articles\/18379-how-take-ownership-full-control-permissions-files-folders-windows.html\" target=\"_blank\">Here&#8217;s a helpful page on the subject <\/a>in case you aren&#8217;t familiar with this process. \u00a0<strong>Be sure you set the permissions correctly!<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Restart the\u00a0MSSQL$MSSMLBIZ service.\n<ul>\n<li>Again, you can use services.msc or type\u00a0<strong>sc start &#8220;MSSQL$MSSMLBIZ&#8221;\u00a0<\/strong>at a Command Prompt.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Finally, start Outlook 2007 and verify that all data has been successfully recovered.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Congratulations, you&#8217;ve done the impossible!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Computer dead? \u00a0Don&#8217;t have a good backup of your Business Contact Manager data? This is a serious problem. \u00a0It&#8217;s not an easy thing to find a solution to, either; those that exist only seem to work for some people, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.triplescomputers.com\/blog\/casestudies\/solution-recover-an-outlook-2007-business-contact-manager-database-from-a-failed-pc\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,135],"tags":[146,149,138,147,136,142,145,141,140,148,139,150,144,143,137],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-casestudies","category-recovery","tag-backup","tag-bcm-2007","tag-business-contact-manager","tag-contacts","tag-database","tag-failed-hard-drive","tag-import","tag-ldf","tag-mdf","tag-office-2007","tag-outlook-business-contact-manager","tag-permissions","tag-recover","tag-recovery-2","tag-sql"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.triplescomputers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.triplescomputers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.triplescomputers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.triplescomputers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.triplescomputers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.triplescomputers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.triplescomputers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.triplescomputers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.triplescomputers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}