Corrupt pst file

Xterminator

Hi,

A users mailbox (.pst) is corrupt. (Outlook XP)
I cannot open it (error file is corrupy, use the inbox repair tool).

When i ran the inbox repair tool it recovered some information, but in usless numbered folders, which have to be manually opened and searched to see whats in them.
He's lost mails, calander and contacts etc.
His new mailbox is fine, but its pretty empty.

Anone know of another tool i might use to try to repair the corrupt file, or have any other ideas etc?

X

Boston

how big is the pst file, over 2 Gigabytes?
Outlook PST files have a size limitation of 2 Gigabytes. Once a PST file exceeds this limit, outlook can no longer open the file, and the data is inaccessible

if this is the case your fugged pretty much, afaik there isnt a software program you can get to uncuropt this type of things. you have to bring it to a specialist and they charge a packet, but can recover up to 99% of the data. ive teh name of one if this is the problem

WhiteWashMan

naturally the file was on a shared drive and the drive was backed up nightly?

WhiteWashMan

sorry i meant a network drive you can password protect

WhiteWashMan

as for the problem at hand, unless you have specialised software, the only thing is an inbox repar and if that doesnt work, a back up from somewhere.
if neither of those work, then you are buggered.

Boston

topic cleared. nothing personal and i hope you take it that way, but this guy could be in quite abite of trouble and he might not apreciate bickering in the topic

i split the thread and sent it to the bin, you can continue this there.

Xterminator

Ah well, i didnt hold up much hope.

Firstly, the file was a respectable 870 mb of mail, contacts and calander info. so it should been ok for a while!
The guy who owns it has never backed it up, it is on his laptop hdd.
I managed to sync up his calander and contacts from his psion, so thats some of the worst avoided.

Thanks N E way.

X

WhiteWashMan

usually the only time you shoudl have trouble like this is with a llaptop because people just seem to hate the bother of syncronizing whenever they are in the office.
if people are going to have pst files on their laptop, they should try to at least back them up either on a server, or at the very worse, just do a straight copy and paste onto a different partition.
but the worse problem with any sort of support is the lack of respect that users are given. ok, 97% of problems come between the chair and keyboard, but its user education thats lacking. so they should be told about these sorts of things. at the end of the day, its up to the techie to help them to help us.
and believe me, ive been there and done that with the whole pst thing.
try the senior president for emea of gateway!
i was very embaressed to have lost his pst file last year over in uxbridge. oh i was mortified!!!!!!!!
but being brilliant, i fixed it

Boston

try running Scandisk.exe then Scanpst.exe afew times in that order. Ive seen this recover some data thought lost forever

Another approach is to use a hex editor remove a single byte from the middle of the PST file, then run Scanpst. A hex editor is a tool for editing raw files; every Windows shareware site has several to choose from.



outlook recovery

easy recovery filerepair

since its not the over 2gb problem, you stand a chance. let us know how you get on

Cabaal

lets leave dead threads die peacefully shall we?