Damaged .pst files

[Scott]

I ran the MS utility "Personal Folder Backup." The very
next time I started Outlook 2K, all of the .psts were
unreadable. I ran the inbox recovery tool, but this did
not fix it - it made the .pst loadable, but it was then
mostly empty.

The MS Outlook site says to run the 2 GB Truncation Tool,
available from Customer Support Services, but I cannot
find a functional link to CSS to get this tool.

1. Where can I get the truncation tool?
2. Why should running the backup make this happen?

 

[neo [mvp outlook]]

1)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...FamilyID=B33B1DFF-6F50-411D-BBDF-82019DDA602E

2) you probably exceeded the limits of the personal folder store.

outlook 97 - 2002 have these limitations when it comes to a pst.

2gb max file size
16,000 or 65,000 items per folder (large table support needs to be on for
larger number)
16,000 or 65,000 folders per folder (large table support needs to be on for
larger number)

outlook 2002 has large table support on by default. outlook 97-2000 users
need to right click on personal folders and select properties | advanced and
check the box to enable the feature.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply. The folders were not oversized, and
did have large table support turned on. The largest folder
is 417K. I ran PST2GB, and it said 'This file is not a
valid .PST File.'

All of them died at once, no matter the size. If I try to
open any of them, Outlook gives the message 'Properties
for this information service must be defined prior to use'
and then 'The file foo.pst is not a personal folders
file.'

The files are still of a size suggesting that the data are
still there, but Outlook cannot recognize them. How can I
fix them?

 

[neo [mvp outlook]]

the only other time i've seen pst blow like this is when burning them to
cd-r/rw and burning it too fast and then using them later. (pst files don't
like to be burned above 4x from personal experience.)

since there really isn't any other tools to repair a pst, you can try
corrupting a copy of the pst on purpose. have no idea if this will work,
but it is about the last thing I can think of to see if the inbox repair
tool can pull anything out.
http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6270-5054599.html

 

[Scott]

I talked with MS online help, and this seemed to be
challenging for them. They had me reconfigure to workgroup
and add a new profile. After that, I was able to import
the .pst - it seems that the profile was corrupt.

Oddly, I just had this happen again, and I am not able to
recover the .pst the same way. I'm stuck once again.