Recover "removed" outlook data file

[Bob]

I just connected my wife's Outlook 2003 to gmail via IMAP.

She uses Yahoo for email on the web, but uses her outlook for calendaring &
contacts. I had setup her gmail so she could get the calendar synch (and
email if wanted).

When I went to synchronize the email, there was an error, so I went into:
- Tools
- Email accounts
- view or change existing

There were 3 accounts in there:
- The one I has just created
- Two from old consulting jobs she's had

One of the two was an exchange server. As this was what was causing the
synch error, I highlighted it and clicked 'remove'.

I didn't realize that her contacts & calendar were attached to this datafile
until a few min later.

I can't find the file anywhere on her hard drive by using search: *.pst, or
*.ost, etc..

Thanks

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Upon removing an Exchange account, you also remove the cache file (ost-file)
associated with it.
Do you have a backup of the file?

 

[Bob]

Robert,

Thanks for answering. I did a search of my hard drive and I can't find a
single .ost file. I did searches for .pst files and I know where they all
are and none of them contain the calendar / contacts data.

Am I out of luck here?

Thanks,

Bob

 

[Roady [MVP]]

If you don't have a backup of the file then; yes.
As I said, removing an Exchange account also removes its ost-file as they
are linked to each other. So if you have no means in reconnecting to the
Exchange server or in case you haven't synched with the Exchange server for
a long while, then the only copy you had was in the ost-file.