During the last attempt (then it opened without locking up) I did these things:

Copied the files from control panel, mail, something I forget at moment then I saw 4 files that I copied and moved to external hard drive.

I then deleted all the files in the above mentioned that my system would allow me to. I believe there was one that I could not.

Then I ran a search for scanpst.exe and used the oldest of the two that were found on my c drive. The other attempts I used the most recent. The one I used last time was associated with i386 (I think).

The scanpst worked this time.

I then tried to open outlook. It was missing the pst file and gave me option to find it. I linked it to the external drive.

Then it opened!

Above I am trying to give you my BEST recollection and I apologize if I either forgot a step or have it in the wrong order. I've been working on this for HOURS on end since the 26th and I've tried so many remedies and read so much things are a little blurry now.

Are you saying I can copy in the old pst file and name it "anything i like.pst"? Then it may be accessible through outlook?

Sorry, I am confused still and maybe even more.

Well done.

I am confused as to which PST file youy are using. It reads to me to be the backup one on the external drive.

Anyway, you'd really want it in the Outlook folder. So, with outlook unloaded, you can copy it there and use the MAIL function in control panel to remove the one you now don't want and you can add the one you just copied.

I'd say you could mark this as SOLVED.

I will try that.

Hmmm... I may have left that step out, I can't remember if I did that or not; I think I did now that you mention it. It may have started to open but then couldn't find the pst so closed up. Then maybe I copied in the pst and other files from external hard drive.

Give me a couple hours to see if I can manage to get Outlook to work exactly as it did before, either way I will come back and mark this RESOLVED.

Thanks!

Cheers

... and write down what you do in sequence. A good discipline for nearly everything!

Indeed well done mate. Hopefully with detailed steps then someone else who gets this problem will know what to do.

Things seem to be working properly thus far!

I have yet to figure out how to retrieve those lost files but when I do I will report back and I WILL take notes of how I did it in sequence. I apologize for not doing that earlier.

Thank you all once again!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
BD