my HDD crashed when i was upgrading win98 to 2000. i piggybacked the HDD to another 2000 box. is there a way to retieve my contacts and old emails from outlook and import them into my running win2000 machine????????

Open outlook, file, import/export .....

what folder & file does outlook install contacts & store emaills by default.

it's a *.pst file stored somewhere. not sure where though

C:\Documents and Settings\your username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

as Fod said, the 'pst' file. You should have "show hidden files and folders" in Folder Options enabled in order to browse to that location via WE.