Stage 5: Restoring your old data
Now we come to the fun part: getting your old data back! If you follow these steps very carefully, you should be pretty happy with the results. Of course, if you lose all your data and your world falls to pieces, remember that I'm a professional and you shouldn't try this at home. ZATZ Publishing, Computing Unplugged Magazine, and I take no responsibility if it all goes to hell. You're on your own. You've been warned.

But, hey, it should work out just fine.

First, find your new Palm folder. It's most likely to be C:\Program Files\Palm\. Open that folder and put it on the left side of your screen, leaving room on the right side of the screen for another folder. Within that folder, open your user folder. Now, open your old user folder and put it on the right side of the screen, as shown in Figure F.

FIGURE F


You'll want to have both folders, side by side. Roll over picture for a larger image.

The folder on your left is the new folder. The folder on your right is the old folder. In Figure F, above, you can see that there are some new items in the new user folder, including folders for VersaMail, Photos, and Voice Memo. We, however, are only concerned with four folders:

• address
• datebook
• memopad
• todo

Notice that although Palm has renamed the applications, their folders in your user folder remain the same. This is a good thing.

Now, simply copy those four folders from your old user folder to your new user folder. Do this with care and be sure you're copying, not moving. This is the part of the process where you're moving your precious data back to the Palm Desktop, so pay very careful attention to which folder is which.

WARNING: Whatever you do, do NOT HotSync yet!

At this point, you should open your new Palm Desktop application, and you'll see that your data is back. You'll need to reset some categories (Palm adds a few on installation) and you'll need to set a new security code, but your stuff is back on your Palm Desktop. It is not yet on your handheld.

Before you HotSync, you've got one more critical step to take. You need to be sure that the data from your desktop overwrites the data on your handheld. Otherwise, bad things could happen. Here's how you do it.

On your system tray should be the little HotSync icon. Right click on it and select Custom. You'll see a screen like that shown in Figure G.

FIGURE G


Be sure to set "Desktop overwrites handheld" for the big four. Roll over picture for a larger image.

For each of Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, and Memos, you're going to want to click the Change button, and then select "Desktop overwrites handheld" for each of these four items. Don't change any of the other conduits.

OK, once you've made sure "Desktop overwrites handheld" for the big four, now you can go ahead and do a HotSync operation.

Whew! There ya go. Your data (and nothing but your data) is now on your new device. Have fun and don't forget to clear the data off your old handheld if you're going to sell it or give it to a friend.

See you next week!