Can I recover lost data from an .mdf or .ldf file?

How to recover Outlook Notes without Outlook

• How can I recover data in Outlook Notes without having Outlook? My computer crashed and I lost the passphrase to get onto my wireless modem. I had it saved in Outlook Notes in three places, my work computer, blackberry and home computer. I left my job a few weeks ago and now that my computer is crashed, I had to buy a new computer. I didn't get one with Outlook on it, just Windows Mail. The recovery people got all of my data, but I don't know which file has the data in it, or how to recover it. I have several possible files. File one is titled "outlook" and is a FAV file. File two is also titled "outlook" and is a NK2 file. Finally, file three is also titled "outlook" and is a SRS file. I don't know anything about these file types and I would love to just get that passphrase.

• Answer:

  What you need is your Outlook PST file. By default it's located in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook. Unfortunately, the only way to open a PST is with Outlook itself. It looks like you can download a trial version of Office 2007 from http://us1.trymicrosoftoffice.com/product.aspx?re_ms=oo&family=officepro&culture=en-US, but you'll need a MS login id.