My hard drive was giving me some problems so I decided to replace it with a new one and install Windows 98SE and all other programs from scratch. I exported my Personal Folders from MS Office 97 Outlook which created a backup.pst file. My intentions were to use this to reload my contacts and emails into Outlook on a new hard drive. I installed MS Office 2000 on the new hard drive and tried to import the backup file but I got an error message indicating: "Properties for this information service must be defined before use". When I clicked OK to this message, another message came up indicating File access denied .... do not have permission to access this file. I really need to recover my email and contacts. I tried reinstalling the old drive to save the emails in a different way, but it died and can not be accessed. My knowledge of Outlook is just above zero. Can anyone help me access this backup file?