A problem with a personal folders file

[The Narcissist]

I had backed up my mails from Outlook 2002 into a personal folders (.pst)
file before formatting my system. I checked that Outlook was importing mails
from the archive successfully. I burned the backup onto a writable CD and
formatted the system. After reformatting though, I wasn't able to import the
mails from the pst file. It gave an error message that I didn't have
sufficient rights to access the file, although I was on an administrator
account. A friend solved this problem for me. He told me that the pst file
should not have a Read Only attribute and should have an Archive attribute. I
copied the file onto my hard drive and changed the attributes as suggested.
Now, when I try importing my mails from the archive, I get a message saying
that the file is not a personal folders file. I trieed using the Inbox Repair
tool but that too failed to recognise it. Is there something that can be done
about it now? Or shoudl I simply resign myself to having lost years of hard
work and a lot of important mails?

Please help.

 

[DL]

Well a backed up file is not an archive, the archive is a specific file
created when you archive folders, and what gets archived depends on the
modified dates settings.
It was only neccessary to copy any and all *.pst files *when OL was closed*
to 'backup' your data.

It appears that whatever method you used to create the data file corrupted
it.

After copying from cd to hd, and to some appropriate location, eg My
Documents, and not overwriting any existing pst, it is only neccessary to
remove the read only flag, Then in OL, File>Open>Data File......browse to
the location.

There are third party companies that *may* be able to recover data from a
corrupted data file, deep pockets needed

 

[Brian Tillman]

I had backed up my mails from Outlook 2002 into a personal folders
(.pst) file before formatting my system.

Explicitly describe the process you used. To back up Outlook, you simply
copy the original PST while Outlook's closed. If you didn't do that, we'll
need to know.

I checked that Outlook was
importing mails from the archive successfully.

Archiving and backup up are in no way related. Moreover, import should
never be part of the process of restoring Outlook data to Outlook.

I burned the backup
onto a writable CD and formatted the system. After reformatting
though, I wasn't able to import the mails from the pst file. It gave
an error message that I didn't have sufficient rights to access the
file, although I was on an administrator account.

Files on a CD, even a CD-RW are read only. Outlook requires read/write
access to a PST. Therefore, you must copy the PST from the CD to your hard
drive and then remove the read-only attribute before Outlook will open them.
On top of that you don't import. You OPEN the PST with File>Open>Outlook
Data File, unless you _want_ to lose information.

A friend solved
this problem for me. He told me that the pst file should not have a
Read Only attribute and should have an Archive attribute. I copied
the file onto my hard drive and changed the attributes as suggested.
Now, when I try importing my mails from the archive, I get a message
saying that the file is not a personal folders file.

Was Outlook open or closed when yuo burned the PST to the CD? If open,
chances are excellent that your PST is trash. Outlok must be closed before
copying a PST. I also have anecdotal evidence that some CD burning software
cannot handle PSTs well and will ruin them when burning.

I trieed using
the Inbox Repair tool but that too failed to recognise it. Is there
something that can be done about it now? Or shoudl I simply resign
myself to having lost years of hard work and a lot of important
mails?

Here's how to back up Outlook:
http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/backupandrestore.htm .
If the data is important enough, there are plenty of PST recovery programs
available for purchase that may have better luck recovering the PST. Google
for "office recovery" or "PST recovery"

 

[The Narcissist]

Thanks for the replies. Sorry if I confused you guys with my incorrect usage
of the terms archive and backup. This is what I actually did.

1. I exported my personal folders to a pst file.
2. I imported the pst back to Outlook, selecting the option to overwrite
duplicates to verify that the export was successful.
3. Outlook was closed when I burned the pst to the CD, though I don't think
that should have had a bearing on my backup since the pst was independent of
Outlook, being an exported file. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
4. After formatting and reinstalling the OS & Office, I tried importing the
pst back to Outlook. This didn't work due to the Attribute issue. So I copied
the pst onto my HD and removed the Read Only flag and added the Archive flag
to its attributes.

Can you please suggest me a good recovery software? What would be the costs
involved? Part of the data is important, but nothing that can't be
reconstructed. So I'll have to analyse the costs involved vis-a-vis the time
and effort it'll take me to reconstruct the lost data. Also, whether the file
is recoverable or not at all is something else I'll have to consider.
Hopefully these tools have trial versions that'll answer this question for me.

 

[DL]

Niether Export or Import is reccommended for native OL data, as posted daily
You will have to google for recovery companies, you are unlikely, I believe,
to find dedicated software
Usually they work on a no recovery / no fee (recovery means any amount of
data, not neccessarily all of it)
Presumably in future you will consider a dedicated backup solution for your
data

It would appear from your explanation of the method, that the corruption
occured in writing to cd.
You have tried using your cd again to copy the data to hd? - remember remove
read only flag, dont ovewrite any existing pst, and in OL, File>open etc

 

[Pat Willener]

Why use Export if you could have simply copied your original PST file?

Why use Import if you could have simply opened the copied PST file?

Export and Import should be used only with non-Outlook files, e.g.
export to an Excel file. Keeping the unadulterated PST files is the best
way of keeping your data save.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Can you please suggest me a good recovery software? What would be the
costs involved? Part of the data is important, but nothing that can't
be reconstructed. So I'll have to analyse the costs involved
vis-a-vis the time and effort it'll take me to reconstruct the lost
data. Also, whether the file is recoverable or not at all is
something else I'll have to consider. Hopefully these tools have
trial versions that'll answer this question for me.

Google for "office recovery" or "recover pst".

 

[The Narcissist]

I downloaded trial versions of a few recovery tools but so far, mnothing
seems to be working. Guess this will have to be a lesson learnt the hard way.
Anyways, thanks all of you for your replies and for all the laerning that I
got.

Cheers.