Address Book Opens Empty

Recently, my windows address book (Documents & Settings/User/Apps/Microsoft/Address Book) has stopped working on my Windows XP SP2 desktop. The *.wab file is in the proper place and is of the right size but when I open it using Outlook Express or simply by clicking on the file itself, it opens empty and, at the same time, creates a new file name in the Address Book folder which uses the first 6 letters of the actual file name. On this same computer, with another address book, this shortened file name does not appear and the address file opens properly. It only occurs with one particular address book file.

Assuming the *.wab file was corrupted, I copied in a backup file to replace the corrupted address book file. The backup was made at a time when the address book was working properly. Unfortunately, the backup file demonstrated the same behavior, opening empty and showing the shortened file name.I then copied the original address book and the backup copy to another computer and found they both opened empty and both created the 2nd file name. On that same computer, other address book files open properly.At this point, an address book file, from my backup, which was working fine at the time the backup was made now fails and does so on two different computers.Other address book files open normally on both computers.I am at a loss and do not know how to recover the contents of the original address file.