Outlook data file not compatible.

[Burger]

I put all of my emails on a .pst before replacing my hard drive. I have now
reinstalled Outlook and when I try to open the outlook data file, I get an
error messge "The .pst file is not compatible with this version of hte
Personal Folders information service. Contact your administrator." I do
not have an administrator as this is my home computer. Any ideas how to
restore my old emails?

 

[DL]

What version of OL and how did you 'put the emails in a pst' and how are you
reconnecting that pst?

 

[Burger]

Outlook 2002. I created a new PST file on a portable hard drive and put all
of my emails in it under different folders prior to changing out my hard
drive. I am trying to File/Open/Outlook Data File and then open it from the
portable hard drive. That is when I get the error message I deatialed
earlier.

 

[DL]

So how did you 'put all' your emails in this new pst?

 

[Burger]

I created the pst and then did a right click on each message and did a move
to folder and chose the pst I had just created.

 

[DL]

The msg you are giving is usually seen when you try to open a later, unicode
version of a pst, in an earlier version of OL (ie 2002)
Before you disconnected your external drive, you closed OL?
If you run scanpst.exe on the pst is anything reported?

 

[Burger]

Yes I disconnected. I tried running a 2GB repair and scanpst and when I
opened that new.pst, it was empty. I did not see any errors.

 

[DL]

If you are able to open the origonal pst and it is empty, then something
went wrong in the copy process

 

[Burger]

I cannot open the original pst. I can only open the pst after it was
repaired by the 2gb something .exe and then the scanpst.exe.

 

[DL]

The 2gb process is used to truncate, remove data, to reduce the size of the
pst. It should not be used unless the pst is about 1.6gb or more.
Scanpst.exe is the repair tool and can be run on a pst if there is a problem
with it.
Run this tool on the origonal pst, or at least a copy of it (in explorer
copy the origonal pst to My Documents, run the tool on this)

 

[Brian Tillman]

I put all of my emails on a .pst before replacing my hard drive. I
have now reinstalled Outlook and when I try to open the outlook data
file, I get an error messge "The .pst file is not compatible with
this version of hte Personal Folders information service. Contact
your administrator." I do not have an administrator as this is my
home computer. Any ideas how to restore my old emails?

It appears you were using Outlook 2003/207 when you created the PST and now
are trying to us it in Outlook 2002 or earler. You can't. Reinstall the
later version of Outlook and use it to create an Outlook 2002-compatible
PST.