lost system

[Don Hinkle]

Yes, somehow it happened, I lost or garbled hopelessly my OS 10.2.6 so 
it wouldn't boot.
After a couple hours on phone with applehelp, and then 6 hours or so at 
the local applestore, I have a restored system with updates, and it's 
so much better, BUT
the effort to archive the previous system with settings failed somehow. 
So I have a brand new system, and all the software, including Mail, 
have lost the settings. I'm running this Mail from the backup on an 
external firewire drive.
And therein lies my hope...
that I can somehow restore the important settings from that CCC backup.
I looked at CCC help and it gave minimal advice. I need some 
handholding or at least a reasonable FAQ-type list on what to do and 
how.
Please!
thanks,

-don