Can I undelete an uninstalled .PST file?

[wardmw]

Hi all,

I put this question in to the Windows Vista group but they suggested I may
have better luck here:

I am running Windows Vista and Office 2007. I needed to reinstall Office as
various bits had been corrupted. To this end I backed up my Outlook 2007 PST
file to a DVD and uninstalled MS Office without verifying the backup (I know
I know, you can't berate me any more than has already been done).

I tried to access the backup after uninstalling Office 2007 only to find the
DVD was corrupt and is irrecoverable.

Is there any way I can get access to my deleted Outlook 2007 PST file or is
it lost completely? Will undelete software recover down enough sub-folders to
get to the .PST file and where would it be located?

Thanks

|\/|artin

 

[Vince Averello]

Undelete software might be able to recover it based on how much you've
written to the drive since the file was deleted.

 

[DL]

If all you did was uninstall Office, your origonal Outlook data file would
still be there.
Of course if you recovered your backup data file to the origonal location
you would have overwritten the origonal and maybe caused the corruption.

How did you try to access the backup file? and how did you back it up?

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I am running Windows Vista and Office 2007. I needed to reinstall Office
as
various bits had been corrupted.

Help>Office Diagnostics in any Office application would be the first thing
to try if some of Office's files have been corrupted.

Is there any way I can get access to my deleted Outlook 2007 PST file or
is
it lost completely? Will undelete software recover down enough sub-folders
to
get to the .PST file and where would it be located?

It's probably still on your hard drive. Open WIndows Explorer and in the
Address field enter

%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Outlook

and click Go. That's the default folder for PSTs. Do you see it? If so,
use the Mail applet in Control Panel to add it to your mail profile.

 

[wardmw]

Many thanks for your time and replies Brian, DL and Vince. I have located the
errant file although why I didn't find it using Vista's vaunted search
facility is beyond me.

Still, the file is there and in one piece, for which I am grateful.

Thanks again all,

|\/|artin

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

Many thanks for your time and replies Brian, DL and Vince. I have located
the
errant file although why I didn't find it using Vista's vaunted search
facility is beyond me.

Because the folder containing it is a hidden folder and Search won't usually
find those. You have to enable viewing hidden files and folders in Control
Panel or in Search.