[pmmail-list] Migration to a new Hard Drive

[Eric Riggert]

Situation:
I'm a very longtime PMMail user (I remember when PMMail97 became PMMail98 
for Windows). I have a bazillion email messages, on a half dozen accounts, 
over 3 different sets of servers.

My very old hard drive has begun doing strange things. No data loss yet. So, 
I bought a newer, bigger (and cheaper) 40 GB drive, installed a fresh copy 
of Win98, and reinstalled some of my applications.

Since Win98 has been getting slower and slower, it seemed better to 
reinstall what I'm using today instead of ghosting the software from the old 
drive (with some possible problems) over to the new drive.

For PMMail2000 Pro, I just downloaded the latest, and installed it. Then I 
realized that I don't remember where I put the email with my original PMMail 
registry key. Oops. (I'd be happy to provide any required identifying 
information - I really am a real user).

I have no intention of running more than one copy of the software. In fact, 
I plan to just mothball the old drive (for possible data recovery, if that 
is later necessary) and run the new drive with the same old applications on 
the same old computer.

So, my questions really amount to:
(1) How do I get my original key, if that is at all possible?
(2) How do I transfer all my account information and emails from one drive 
to the other in the most painfree way possible?

What I did so far:
I noticed that all PMMail files seem to be in \PMMail and \Tools. I backed 
these two directories up, including all subdirectories, onto a CD.

Then I swapped harddrives (new one has only Win98, IE5.5, virus scanner, and 
fresh PMMail installation), and used the CD to copy all 6 account 
directories (\PMMail\accountname.act). I noticed that there appears to be a 
copy of my original registration key in the file \PMMail\PMMAILW.INI, along 
with some account/folder information, so I copied that off of the CD as 
well, overwriting the new/fresh/empty one.

Rebooting pulled up PMMail after a huge delay (6000 messages or so to index, 
I think). All accounts appear to be present. I can fetch from any of the 
accounts successfully. But when I try to send a message, I get a Page Fault 
error and PMMail is shut down. If I try to change the account properties, 
they are editable, but opening them right back up again shows that the 
changes I made did not take.

I tried pulling over some other configuration looking files from the CD 
archive, but with no improvement, so I won't elaborate.

So - what can be done to salvage the new installation? Am I missing 
important file(s) or registry key(s)? Is there a rundown anywhere of what 
files are necessary for operation of various basic features?

--------
Update to above:
I tried re-installing PMMail2000 again over the broken installation, with my 
old emails already present on this new hard drive.  Same behavior (crashes 
on send - page fault).
--------

Best regards,
Eric Riggert (suffering with HotMail), e_riggert@hotmail.com



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