i'm getting an error message when opening outlook

[Guest]

last night all was well, today i opened outlook only to get an error message
as follows:
unable to open your default email folders. the file c:\documents and
settings\administrator\local settings\application
data\microsoft\outlook\outlook.pst is not a personal folders file

how do i fix this without deleting my email, i already ran spybot s&d and
found no problems, something changed since last night how do i prevent this
from happening again?

 

[Guest]

Close Outlook. Go to search for files (Start > Search) and look for
scanpst.exe. When it finds it, double click the file and follow the
instructions to locate your PST file. Let it scan the file, you may have to
scan it repeatedly - until it finds no more errors. Then try opening Outlook
again.

If that doesn't help, please post back with your version of Outlook and PST
size.

 

[Guest]

now message says , the inbox repair tool does not recognize the file
C:/.............
no information can be recovered.

is there anything else that that i can try?

 

[Guest]

What version of Outlook are you using and what size is your PST file?

 

[Guest]

office2003 and 0 kb's

i'm guessing that the file is empty, and it probably needs to be
reinstalled, all i have done so far is use the repair feature in office. when
i try to just install outlook the program key comes back invalid, i guess
that is because the key is for the entire office package?
i don't have anything real important in outlook but if this has happened
once it can happen again and i would like to know what happened and how to
fix it without losing data so i can avoid this from happening again.

 

[Guest]

i reinstalled and i am getting the original message again. i uninstalled ,
shutdown the system to clear memory then rebooted then reinstalled.