Tuesday, February 28, 2012

How to fix PST file error in Outlook 2007 with PST Repair tool

Microsoft Outlook 2007 offers a wide range of useful features and great compatibility support. This is the reason why a large number of users migrate or upgrade to this Outlook version. However, despite its exceptional functionalities, Outlook 2007 is also not untouched from errors and problematic issues. One of the prime concern for avoiding the issues in Outlook is to protect the data file of Outlook which is known as PST (Personal Storage Table) file. As any type of damage to this file can cause severe performance issues in Outlook. Also if the situation gets worst and you caught up in the issue of PST corruption then it becomes essential to use PST repair tools to regain access to your Outlook.

Suppose one day when you open Outlook 2007 application and receives the following data error :

“A data file did not close properly the last time it was used and is being checked for problems. Performance might be affected while the check is in progress.”

Just after few second, you receive the message “Data file check complete”. You think that might be Outlook is checking for some errors and has fixed the errors. But when you receive the same error message continuously then you realize that there is some problem with the Outlook. The real cause of this problem is the error in data file of Outlook that is the .pst file.

To resolve these PST file error, first it is necessary to identify the location of .pst file. In Outlook 2007, to find the location of .pst file follow these steps:

1. Go to Tools menu → click Option dialog box.
2. In dialog box, click Mail Setup tab and click Data files button.
3. In Account Settings window, you will see list of all the .pst file. Note the path of your .pst file.
4. Now close dialog box and exit Outlook.

Now once you have identified the location of Outlook .pst file, you need to repair the .pst file with a Outlook PST repair tool. One such tool is provided by Microsoft in Outlook, known as Inbox Repair Tool (Scanpst.exe). The default location of Inbox Repair Tool in Outlook 2007 is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12. To use scanpst.exe, follow below mentioned steps:

1. Close Outlook. Open Windows Explorer and double click on Scanpst.exe.
2. Browse the .pst file as per the location which you have noted earlier and scan the file to check for error.
3. If any error is found then you will receive a message like “Error were found in this file. To repair these errors, click Repair”.
4. Before repair ensure that “Make backup of scanned file before repairing” is checked. Then click 'Repair' button.
5. When the repair process gets completed, then open the Outlook to check whether PST file has been repaired or not.

Try to perform the operations like send/receive, delete, move etc. If all are working fine then it means that .pst file has been repaired.

However, most of the time the result does not come as expected and Scanpst.exe fails to repair the .pst file due to its limitations. At this point of time, a third party tool can be really beneficial to repair damaged PST file.

With its intensive repair features, Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair tool is a powerful tool to repair damaged .pst file objects. It recovers all emails, contacts, calendar, tasks, notes, journals with its deep scanning algorithm and restore these at safe location. Moreover, the tool is compatible with Outlook 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002 and 2000 and allows to preview objects that could be recovered with its demo version.

No comments: