My laptop has been getting grumpier and grumpier over the last few weeks and now it’s decided not to boot up in anything except safe mode.

So it looks like a re-install of Windows is required. It’s an HP laptop and there is a proprietary “Recover” facility that takes it back to how it was when it was a few days old. I wonder if it’s going to sing nursery rhymes to me like HAL in 2001.

Anyhoo…I’ve got loads of stuff in Outlook that I don’t want to lose (emails and attachments – I’ve got all my calendar and contacts backed up to my phone) and the .pst file is about 650Mb.

Do I just save that to my removable hard drive, do I “export” to a .pst or is there a proper way of backing it up?

I usually just copy the .pst file, but you can export too I think. Microsoft have released an Outlook .pst backup addin that allows you to save out the .pst file wherever you want but it’s probably just as easy to drag the .pst file to a removable drive.

Hmmm. Good link, got the download but PC won’t let me install it in Safe Mode.

But I backed up the PST and now PC Recovery is formatting the disc. Here’s hoping!

You’ll be fine, I reckon.