restore emails and contacts from saved database on external hard drive

I finally upgraded my pc to windows 7 from xp, but before I installed, I saved all the data files on an external hard drive in a file named em client data , I cannot figure out what to do next, and what I found here wasn’t helpful. How do I get my old mail files back? my contacts?

Hi Alice,
did you save your database? If yes, than just copy the database files into your new database.
The location can be found in Tools>Settings>General>Storage.
If you made a backup of your database in a ZIP file, then you have to move this file to your Documents folder and then inside eM client use the File>Restore function.

Regards,
Olivia

I did saved the entire contents of the app data file as is on an external drive and there’s a bunch of different files, so what is the file path I am sending these to? sorry, I find this confusing…the new em client data base is basically the same thing I copied to my external drive, so wouldn’t copying and pasting it there mess that up? thanks for answering me, btw! 

Hi Alice,
installed eM Client is looking for its database at the location found in Tools>Settings>General>Storage.
If there is no database files in this location, it creates new ones. So the name of the files is the same, but the content is different.
If you want to use your previous database, you need to replace these new files.
There is no way to merge the changes.

Regards,
Olivia

ok, so I copy the entire data base and replace it how exactly? I tried copying it to the log file, and em client doesn’t see it. what am I doing wrong here? Sorry for being obtuse.

Hi Alice,
the database files should be named the same, if you have the database from the old location in C:\Users_your user account_\AppData\Roaming\eM Client.
Just replace them in the new location, which by default usually also is C:\Users_your user account_\AppData\Roaming\eM Client.
You can just replace the whole eM Client folder as is.

Regards,
Olivia