The data was able to be saved from the disk and copied on to an external backup drive, and a new hard disk put in the notebook. 

Given that they installed Lion on the new hard disk i decided to upgrade to Office 2011 at the same time, now when i come to import the main mail identity to outlook 2011, it finds the folder on the external hard disk ok, but then instead of saying importing mail/etc - it just says all imported (impossible its 5GB of data) and click finish to use outlook.

Help  -i have alot of emails and contacts on there that are needed!