Recovered a corrupted .pst - here's how!

[M Skabialka]

Because of a sudden loss of connectivity on our LAN, one of our users ended
up with a corrupted .pst file which he keeps on the server.

Scanpst reported no errors, and the file is 1.7 GB so under the 2GB limit.

After several failed efforts at recovery, tried the following successfully:

Copied the .pst file to another PC, also running Win2K, Outlook2K.
Opened Outlook as myself, not the user.
Created a new .pst file (Tools, Services, Add, Personal Folder) called
recovered.pst.
Used
File | Import and Export | Import from another program or file | Personal
folder file (.pst)
then followed the prompts to select the corrupted .pst as the import from
and the recovered.pst as the file to import into, replacing all messages.

At first when I chose the corrupted file it looked as though it froze
Outlook, but the hard drive was was cranking along so I waited. Finally it
showed the entire structure of the corrupted file, and I was able to
continue and tell it where to place it all in the recovered.pst. 2 hours
later it was done, and copied back to the server!

The user is now cleaning out the email and breaking it up into smaller .pst
files.

So this strategy may work for others who have corrupted .pst files, or maybe
not, but it's worth a try!

Mich

 

[Brian Tillman]

Copied the .pst file to another PC, also running Win2K, Outlook2K.
Opened Outlook as myself, not the user.
Created a new .pst file (Tools, Services, Add, Personal Folder) called
recovered.pst.
Used
File | Import and Export | Import from another program or file |
Personal folder file (.pst)
then followed the prompts to select the corrupted .pst as the import
from and the recovered.pst as the file to import into, replacing all
messages.

Importing a PST is to be avoided if possible. Did you try
File>Open>Personal Folders File first? You should,.

 

[M Skabialka]

No I didn't try that.

You said "Importing a PST is to be avoided if possible" - why is that?

The user got a message when he tried to move an email into the personal
folder, which had been open that morning. He then removed then added the
..pst back under Tools, Services. At that point it wouldn't even expand to
show his multiple sub-folders.

Scanpst said nothing was wrong but it still wouldn't open. On older version
of some on-track software recovered some of the emails but created an
orphans folder and renamed all of his sub-folders to B001, B002, etc - not a
pretty sight.

After I tried the Import successfully, another person tried it on the same
..pst with no luck.

I guess you keep trying things until something works!

Mich

 

[Brian Tillman]

You said "Importing a PST is to be avoided if possible" - why is that?

Because the PST is the native Outlook file format. You don't import a text
document to Notepad or a Word document into Word, do you? You simply open
them with the application. Moreover, importing can modify elements within
the items being imported, either changing information or deleting it
altogether. Not what you want. It's rare that importing a PST will result
in better behavior than using File>Open.

The user got a message when he tried to move an email into the
personal folder, which had been open that morning.

And what, exactly, was the text of that error message?