My Inbox Repair Tool can't repair my .pst file, what can I do?

G

Guest

After doing every thing here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP010210641033.aspx

The Inbox Repair tool stopped in the middle of “Phase 5 of 8†it popped up
this message:

"An error has occurred which caused the scan to be stopped. No Changes have
been made to the scanned file."

As you can imagine the Outlook folders that seam to be corrupt are very
important. Is the Inbox Repair tool my only hope to repair them, or is
everything lost? (well not everything, I still have a back up file, but it is
a few months old, and my most important information is from recent e-mails
and contacts).
 
B

Bill R MVP

Try running chkdsk and defrag a few times and it might help.
Other than that - if scanpst fails you might need 3rd party help (at
possible considerable cost) to recover data.
I'm assuming you can't open the PST at all. Can you? IF you can then try and
copy items from the store.
 
G

Guest

Thanks Bill, but no such luck, but it was worth a try. At least I got a good
defragment out of it.
Lesson learned: Back Up every two months!! (minimum)
 
B

Bill R MVP

You might like to install the Personal folders backup utility. I don't use
it but some swear by it.
 
G

Guest

I got the same problem as Lord Gibson. but what can i do if the pst files are
store on the server?
 
B

Brian Tillman

John S. said:
My inbox repair will not work, It says that the file is currently in
use. Any ideas?

Booting your PC into safe mode should eliminate that problem.
 
G

Guest

Look in the Task Manager under "Processes." If the word OUTLOOK appears, end
it. Other items that may impact the complete closing are: CTFMON,
WCES...(Active Synce for your PDA), and finally MSN Messenger.

The .PST file here will not copy/move anywhere, and can't be repaired for
reasons of a "file error" presumably repairable with NTFS repair tools. The
disk partitionn tests as good with no issues.

Attemps to backup are still failing. The .pst file size is out to 2MB.

Terry
 
G

Guest

I've had a problem with a "cyclic redundancy error" and the outlook.pst file
was corrupted. It cannot be opened, copied or moved. I tried the Inbox
Repair tool, without success. Luckily, I'd backed up about 2 1/2 weeks ago,
but I have lost files pertaining to our business. Is there any hope of
repairing the file?
 
H

Hal Hostetler [MVP P/I]

You might have some success if you use ChkDsk in addition to the Inbox
Repair Tool:

http://www.slipstick.com/problems/scanpst.htm
To repair a damaged Personal Folders PST file
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319128/en-us
"Data Error (Cyclic Redundancy Check)" Error Message When Outlook Downloads
E-mail

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-Print/Imaging -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
KVOA Television, Tucson, AZ. NBC Channel 4
Still Cadillacin' - www.badnewsbluesband.com
 
G

Guest

Thank you. I'd already run chkdsk, followed the instructions in the
Microsoft Database article on the issue. I even tried the crop tool (which
didn't work because the file was ,< 2 GB). I've renamed the file as well.
What's odd is the file became corrupted for no apparent reason - no detectabe
virus, etc.

I'll check the slipstick URL.
 
G

Guest

I too exceeded 2GB, did use the utility to crop the file back down to about
1.99 GB. Tried running the repair utility but still no success. I tried to
first compress the file with the Windows 2000 utility, I also ended up
installing a copy of Outlook 2002 professional since I could not get a hold
of the Outlook 2002 Premier version that I was currently running. Would
changing versions of Outlook here cause me a problem accessing the file now?
I thought it would work once I made the file size smaller. Could trying to
compress the file with Windows cause a problem (I really do not think windows
compression utility did anything to the file? It certainly did not make it
any smaller.

GLW said:
Thank you. I'd already run chkdsk, followed the instructions in the
Microsoft Database article on the issue. I even tried the crop tool (which
didn't work because the file was ,< 2 GB). I've renamed the file as well.
What's odd is the file became corrupted for no apparent reason - no detectabe
virus, etc.

I'll check the slipstick URL.
 
B

Brian Tillman

Ron - cannot open PST file <Ron - cannot open PST file
@discussions.microsoft.com said:
I too exceeded 2GB, did use the utility to crop the file back down to
about 1.99 GB. Tried running the repair utility but still no success.

Run the crop tool again to remove more.
I tried to first compress the file with the Windows 2000 utility, I
also ended up installing a copy of Outlook 2002 professional since I
could not get a hold of the Outlook 2002 Premier version that I was
currently running. Would changing versions of Outlook here cause me
a problem accessing the file now?

With an ANSI PST, the version of Outlook you use will not make any
difference because the size limitation is an attribute of the file, not of
Outlook.
I thought it would work once I made
the file size smaller. Could trying to compress the file with Windows
cause a problem (I really do not think windows compression utility
did anything to the file? It certainly did not make it any smaller.

There is no Windows utility that will compact a PST. Compress and Compact
aren't the same thing. COmpression is a Windows File System feature.
Compaction is what Outlook does to remove "white space" (unused allocation)
from a PST.
 
G

Guest

Use a good Hex Editor (like iHex) to open the PST file. Delete a couple of
bytes near the beginning of the file (say, the second and third). Run the
repair tool again.

Regards.
 
G

Guest

My outlook opened this morning and then stopped after I read the first email.
Now I'm having the exact same problem and error. Has anyone come up with a
way to fix these files? I NEED to get these emails. Thanks.
 
J

JNPT

Although, this tool works in some cases of PST corruption but it is not
always capable of handling PST Corruption.
For more information regarding limitations of inbox repair utility visit
here->
http://www.inbox-repair-tool.net/inbox-repair-utility-limitations.php

In such situation, you may try Outlook PST Repair Software to repair corrupt
pst file which scans, repairs and restores corrupted PST. Effective to use
and safe for PST repair, the software supports all Outlook versions and helps
at each stage of corruption for PST recovery.

To evaluate the software free download here->
http://www.repair-outlook-pst.com/download-pst-recovery.php
 

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