PST2GB shrinks PST drastically!!

[Robert G]

I have a user that has a 1.9 GB PST. I ran scanPST, no luck. Then
ran the PST2GB and shrunk it to 1.7 GB, then ran scanPST. That worked
fine. However, when I go into Outlook and compact the PST, it goes
from 1.7 GB to about 550 MB!! I don't understand why this is
happenening or how to resolve this. Any help would be appreciated.

-Robert

 

[Patricia Cardoza - [MVP Outlook]]

A PST doesn't reclaim unused space well. Compating is about the only way to
reclaim unused space. SO it's very possible that the 1.9 GB PST really only
had 550 MB of stuff in it. When you delete items from a PST the space they
used to take up isn't reclaimed until compaction.

--
Patricia Cardoza
Outlook MVP
www.cardozasolutions.com

Author, Special Edition Using Microsoft Outlook 2003

***Please post all replies to the newsgroups***

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Replied in another group - if you need to post to multiple groups, it's best
to do so all at once in a single message (separate the NG names with commas)
so that everyone can follow the thread. Thanks ....

Crossposting = posting once to several newsgroups within a single message.
This is not a Bad Thing (presuming the list of groups posted to is small,
and all the groups are truly relevant to your question)

Multiposting = posting separate, identical posts to several newsgroups. This
is a Bad Thing.

See http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm

 

[Robert G]

I had actually compacted the PST prior to running PST2GB, so it in
fact was 1.9GB. Also, before running PST2GB, there were over 16,000
items in the PST...after running PST2GB, there were only 3,600. I
know it truncates it, but THAT much?? I asked it to only truncate
about 150 MB from it (to get it under 1.8GB).

-Rob

 

[Robert G]

I resolved my own problem. I wanted to post the fix for anyone else
that might find it useful. I ran ScanPST first and let it repair the
problems. Then I ran the PST2GB and truncated it to about 1.7 or 1.8.
And then after that, I ran i-hex editor and changed the first 2
digits to 00 and re-saved the PST. Then I re-ran the ScanPST. From
that point I created new PST's and then was able to copy the items
manually from the big one to the 2 new ones. After that, I compressed
the PST's and all is good now. Might not be the best way to do it,
but it worked for me. Here are some links to where I found the
programs also.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;296088&Product=ol2002
http://www.slipstick.com/problems/scanpst.htm

-Rob