Open Archive.pst error.. please help

[MTBH]

My work laptop is giving me issues. I got a new laptop recently and IT saved
my archive.pst file to a network drive on my new laptop. Initially IT loaded
my archives to my new laptop and all was perfect. The past few days I have
been getting errors when clicking on my archived emails from within outlook
telling me my H drive was inaccessible... It was freezing my outlook. So out
of aggravation I closed the archive file... Well, of course all my archive
disappeared from view.
Now I am trying to reload my archives by using the - file/open/outlook data
file and choosing my archive.pst file that was saved on my network drive and
I am getting the following error: " The file H:\archive.pst is not a
personal filders file. "
Any ideas ???

 

[DL]

MS doesnt support the use of a pst over a network.
If the archives are on your local PC, open them within Outlook
(File>Open>Data File....browse to the archive)
I'm assuming H is a network drive, if it isnt then run scanpst.exe against
the archive file

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

My work laptop is giving me issues. I got a new laptop recently and IT
saved
my archive.pst file to a network drive on my new laptop. Initially IT
loaded
my archives to my new laptop and all was perfect. The past few days I
have
been getting errors when clicking on my archived emails from within
outlook
telling me my H drive was inaccessible... It was freezing my outlook. So
out
of aggravation I closed the archive file... Well, of course all my
archive
disappeared from view.
Now I am trying to reload my archives by using the - file/open/outlook
data
file and choosing my archive.pst file that was saved on my network drive
and
I am getting the following error: " The file H:\archive.pst is not a
personal filders file. "

Alas, PSTs on network shares are prone to acquiring errors when network
traffic isn't perfect, as you've discovered. Microsoft advises that PSTs
should never be kept on network shares. Moreover, once a PST produces the
error you are seeing, it's unlikely that the PST can be recovered except by
a commercial PST recovery tool. Some examples of these can be found here:
http://www.slipstick.com/problems/scanpst.asp

 

[K. Orland]

Move your archive.pst file back to your laptop. Microsoft doesn't advocate or
support the use of a PST from a networked drive and for good reason. Outlook
requires constant read/write access to the PST. You have seen exactly what
can happen if there's any interruption to the connection between Outlook and
a PST file.

If you want to make a copy of your archive.pst file and save that copy to
your H drive, that's fine as long as it's not your working copy that Outlook
needs to use. You have to keep that copy locally (on your laptop).

It's possible that there may be some issues with the PST file now as a
result so you might have to run a repair against it (while Outlook is
closed). If you don't know how to do this, please post back for instructions.


Good luck!

 

[MTBH]

I think the file is damaged because I already tried to make a copy of the pst
file from the network drive back to my laptop, but I'm still getting the same
error, can you tell me of a 'safe' way to repair this file, I have 8 years of
archives save in it... And since this is my work laptop I don't want to do
anything that can harm any other files on the laptop or the network....
Thanks.

 

[K. Orland]

If my suggestion doesn't work then you'll have to follow Brian's suggestion
for a third party repair tool.

You must be able to see hidden folders/files plus you must be able to see
known file extensions. If you're not, you can change this in Windows
Explorer.

Do a search for scanpst.exe AFTER moving your archive.pst to your laptop.
There's no point in having a copy of a corrupted file so delete one of them
since you've left one on your H drive, or so it sounds. MAKE SURE OUTLOOK IS
CLOSED and there are no instances of outlook.exe running in the processes
(use Task Manager to be sure). Double-click scanpst.exe and follow the
instructions. It will ask you to browse to the PST file so you must know
where it's located. Let scanpst run the repair. Once it's finished, run it
again. If it finds errors, repeat the repair until no further errors are
found. Then open Outlook and use File > Open to open your archive file.

If the above doesn't work, go to Brian Tillman's post and follow the link he
provided. He's not just another pretty face and knows his stuff.