We have some suggestions to try in the Import PST files article. One suggestion could be to migrate to a (trial version of) Outlook 2010 first.

Solved it by installing TB 2.0.0.6 - which CAN import from OUTLOOK 2000. I then downloaded and installed TB 24.5. All seems to be OK. Many Thanks for your ideas.

I have this same problem. I followed your suggestion and tried to download TB 2.0.0.6 from oldapps.com and it tried to download a Trojan. Where did you download TB 2.0.0.6 from? After importing to this, how did you move to current version of TB? Could you please give me detailed instructions?

Get Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 from:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/2.0.0.6/

Assuming that you've not got Thunderbird on your computer...

Download the version you need for your OS, install it and import the outlook .pst file. I'm sorry but I cannot remember the exact import process, but I seem to remember that it was quite straightforward. When I did it the imported mail was stored in a Thunderbird local folder called Outlook Mail.

Then run and update Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 in the normal ( Help>About Thunderbird ) manner.

If you've already got, and have been using, Thunderbird - that complicates the procedure. I hope that the above will suffice.