Backing Up Your Contact List II (tested with only ICQ98)
Another solution to back up your list.

 

1- Shut down your ICQ if it is already running.

2- Zip the folder "ICQ" totally without entering in it.

3- Move the zipped file to a safe folder.

4- Re-Install ICQ and unzip the backup file on it. (use overwrite)
Important Note !!! : Don't confuse the folders. You have to unzip it by overwriting the files. Extracting to another directory is nonsense.

5- That's it. You don't need to add everyone one by one as it was told in "Backing Up Your Contact List I" section.

6-

Not : You MUST ZIP the ICQ folder. Copying it is NOT working. Otherwise you can't restore your list
Before processing with these steps, check out Backing Up Your Contact List I section.