Posts Tagged ‘pst repair’

It's Not that Hard to Repair a PST File

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

If you have worked with Microsoft Office products such as Outlook on a regular basis, then you may have some passing familiarity with PST files. Outlook uses the PST file (Personal Stroage Table) to store all the user data like emails, callander, contacts. Not only does this include e-mail messages from Microsoft Exchange mail boxes, but also calendar items and other task items. In almost all caes the Outlook PST file can be found locally on the end users C drive but it is posible to have it stored on another drive or even over a network.

Over the course of a few years you will most likely encounter a problem with your pst file. It is possible to do a PST file repair using a variety of methods, depending on the severity of the damage. The first task is to find out where your PST files are stored. By default, they can be found in “C:Documents and SettingsUSER Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook”. Be sure to substitute your Windows login screen name for USER when typing in this directory. The default filename for your PST file that is hosting your current mail box is Outlook.pst. There is also an archive file available, known as Archive.pst. There is no way of telling if a PST file is corrupt based on visual inspection. In almost all cases you will know the pst file is corrupt becaue when Opening up Outlook it will tell you that.

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Microsoft Outlook comes with an automatic repair method and an external repair kit for fixing Outlook PST files. When Outlook is opened, the program will notify you of this problem, and then attempt to fix the PST file automatically. Outlook will in most cases try to do an automaitc repair of the PST file and you should let it try before having to use the external free Scan tool. In the event that the automatic repair fails to fix the Outlook PST file, you will have to open the Inbox Repair Tool located in “C:Program FilesCommon FilesSystemMSMAPI1033” and search for the Inbox Repair Tool, under the filename Scanpst.exe.

The Inbox Repair Tool is an external executable program that scans and repairs corrupt or damaged PST files. To start this program, double click on the Scanpst.exe executable. You will then see window that will ask you to locate the name of the PST file you wish to repair. After this task is done then it's on to starting the Inbox repair tool to scan and repair the PST file. If the PST file is too corrupted or damaged, the Inbox Repair Tool may not be able to fix the Outlook PST file, requiring other third-party solutions. If the Inbox Repair Tool cannot be found in the specified location, find and run CNFNOT32.exe, which should be in the same location that Scanpst.exe should be located. This will restore the executable back to the proper location.

This guide is sure to help out if your pst file is corrupt.If the Outlook program keeps crashing on you and if that seems to be casuing the PST file to become corrupt then consider uninstalling office.  This helps to resolve many different kinds of issues.  In case you are having trouble uninstalling office then check out this cannot uninstall site for software to help out.

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Learn How to Repair Your PST File Free

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

A .The pst file is the file that contains almost all your Outlook information. This singal folder holds almost all your information including e-mails, contacts, lists, calandar and notes. This is an extremely important file, so you should know how to repair PST file in advance of a problem occurring. Imagine if you suddenly lost all of this critical data. Read this article to learn how to PST File Repair.

In Outlook all your folders, e-mails and contact information is kept in one single file .pst file. Your Outlook PST file over time will slowly get corrupt and very very large. If this happens, don’t panic. There are several ways you can repair the .pst file.

The first thing you should do is to make a backup of the .pst file. Don't wait another day, backup your PST file right this second so you won't have to worry about lost data. Depending on how often your data changes and how important it is will determine how often you will want to back it up, but back it up. Using Windows Explorer, simply drag a copy from your Outlook folder to a safe place, preferably offline somewhere, such as a flash drive.   Better yet check out this Backup Vista Online article.Backing up your data online is a great choice.  Your .pst file is located in drive:Documents and SettingsuserLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook. If your .pst file becomes corrupt then you can just remove it and replace it with your backup or attempt the repair method we have covered in this article .pst file with the backup, or simply drag the backup file back into place. Outlook will need to be closed to drag the file into place or back it up.

But if you need to know how to PST File Repair, the first thing to try is the Inbox Repair Tool. The name of the free built in repair tool is called scanpst.exe and can be found by doing a search or using Windows Explorer and going to a location similar to drive:Program FilesCommon FilesSystemMapiLocaleID and titled scanpst.exe.exe. Take not that the LocaleID is specific to your computer and depending on what Outlook version you have it may or may not even have this last folder. Browse there from your Start, Run menu and click OK. Even if you have a backup, choose the option to make a backup before repairing.

If the repair works, you will see a message saying that the repair is complete. If not, then it is time to pull the backup or use a more advanced PST repair tool like the one this article links to. Many of these are very good, and a lot of them are try before you buy, so you can make sure that they work before you purchase them. The most important part of this article is to make and keep a backup copy of your PST file, so if you need to know how to repair PST file, the answer will be easy.

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