OT: Wind98 Undelete of File

[Tim]

Hi,

I have a customer that has somehow deleted her outlook PST file - not
through her own actions. How seems to be a mistery. We wish to recover the
file. I have tried 2 undelete utilities and both indicate the file is of
zero length when it should be several hundred MB.

Anyone got any hints? I know not to use the disc drive / write to it, so the
system is off until I have a clear action path.

She has a brand new XP SP2 system ready on her desk awaiting this
resolution... just in case this brings it enough On Topic

Thanks in advance...

- Tim

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi,

I have a customer that has somehow deleted her outlook PST file - not
through her own actions. How seems to be a mistery. We wish to recover the
file. I have tried 2 undelete utilities and both indicate the file is of
zero length when it should be several hundred MB.

Anyone got any hints? I know not to use the disc drive / write to it, so the
system is off until I have a clear action path.

She has a brand new XP SP2 system ready on her desk awaiting this
resolution... just in case this brings it enough On Topic

OK, so you're about to buy a BMW, and this is why you're asking
the BMW newsgroup how to fix your old Ford car . . . Repost in
a Win98 newsgroup, because this is where the Win98 experts hang out.

 

[Tim]

I just completed imaging the drive onto my XP system.

So, the question is now On Topic.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Unfortunately it is still not a WinXP issue. Most imaging
programs will process files and folders but will ignore the
blank spaces in between. In other words, your missing
..PST data, if it still exists, is still on the original disk but
not on the imaged disk.

Your best chance is to retrieve the file from backup.

 

[Mike Hall]

wot bakup?..

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/user

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Yes, I know: Most people ignore this backup thingie
until they suffer a king hit. How does it go again? Back
up all important files once a week to one of two (or more)
independent and removable media?

 

[Tim]

Yeah, well you can go on about backups if you wish, but thats ignoring the
issue. It does not change the facts. The issue is that this person came to
me for help *because* she did not have a backup and needs to get this file
back if at all possible.

So, the drive is mounted alongside the Drive Image created partition which
was made including the free disc space and without compression - I can test
undelete's there and recreate the work partition if needed and still have
the original drive online...

There is either a way out of this or there is not.

 

[Tim]

100% fixed now.

Norton's AV had taken it upon itself to delete the file and put it in
quarantine even though it was a PST. One attachment was reported as having a
Win32.mm style virus in, but Norton's should have deleted the attachment,
not the whole PST...

The file was spotted when trying to account for the low disk space (500MB),
how the file had been deleted, and how it was that with nothing done to the
disc there was not enough space for the PST to start off with... I had
previously noticed the file and tried to attach it to outlook which reported
it was not a Mailbox. ScanPst however did - but recovered 2 folders and zero
messages when at about 1GB it should have had thousands. Installed and ran
OutlookRecover by from OfficeRecovery.com and this completely fixed things.

Perhaps Norton's has / had a bug or some really clever virus did this and
disappeared. Somehow it seems more likely to be the first.

So thanks to all those that helped - it just goes to show that a problem can
start in one realm of expertise and with the right help one can plough
through with some persistence and cross through new territory and solve
things in the end.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Congratulations, and thanks for the feedback. Was the file still stored
under its original name, or did Norton give it a different name?

 

[Tim]

Nortons gave the mailbox file a different name but with .pst extension. The
files appeard in a folder called APTemp with names AP?.pst where ? was 0, 1,
2, 3, 4.

As mentioned I did try opening the files (there were 5 of them, two zero
length) with outlook and went no further when it said they were not Mailbox
files. However reading around and being a little persistent I decided to try
scanpst which sort of worked on 1 of the files (0 messages recovered but
this confirmed the file was / had been a PST). I noticed when googling the
software product OutlookRecover and tried that with 100% success.

- Tim