Outlook Personal backup file overwritten

[LisaO]

Hi, I have Vista with Outlook Office 2007 and use outlook Personal Backup on
a Compaq desktop. My Toshiba laptop crashed and lost all data -- but i had
only lost 3 days of emails since i had backed up my outlook PST files to my
compaq desktop 3 days prior to my laptop crashing. I was sooo excited when I
opened the backup file and there were all my emails!! Now, the problem. I
was working today, and closed my Outlook and reopened in another profile (i
have 3, and all 3 use a different backup naming convention so i know which
one is which). However, when i went back into my first profile, the backup
program had backed-up when I exited Outlook and overwrote to just the emails
that were in the regular Personal folders - not the extra personal folders I
had open too -- and had named this new backup the same as the previous backup
file, and hence, overwrote all my restored emails!

is there anyway i can retrieve those emails? Are they still somewhere on my
harddrive? Please, any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Where did you keep the pst-file?
If you have Previous Versions enabled on that partition, you might be able
to restore the overwritten file. Make sure you don't restore it over the
original this time ;-)

To see previous versions, right click on the original pst-file and choose
Restore Previous Versions.

 

[LisaO]

This .pst file was always created in my Documents folder on my desktop from
my laptop (cause when the laptop crashes, those files are inaccessible -
thought I was actually being smart ). I must not have Previous Versions
ernabled on this partition, as when I right-click that option does not show
up.

Any other ideas? Will a file recovery program work, does anyone know?

Thanks so much!

 

[Roady [MVP]]

If you look at the properties of the file, you don't see the tab displayed
here either?
http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/getworkdone/computingtips.mspx#EFD

A recovery application might work but only if none of the sectors making up
your original pst-file has been reused yet. Best is to not use that computer
at all until you've tried a recovery application on it to prevent
overwriting.

 

[LisaO]

Unfortunately, no - I have Vista Home Premium and apparently Previous Version
is not available with that version :-( - otherwise it would have been IT!! I
will try a recovery application and if that doesn't do it, I guess I'll have
to give up - bummer!

Thank you so much for your help and suggestions!!

 

[Roady [MVP]]

I'm spoiled with Vista Ultimate I guess. I never realized it wasn't an
option in the Home Premium Edition. It appears that by default the VSS
service is running though and making Previous Version copies of your files
as well. So basically only the user interface is missing. This tool might
help you then;
http://www.shadowexplorer.com/

Good luck!

 

[LisaO]

Hi,

For some reason, I did not get a notice that there was a reply to my posting
until today :-( However, the information you provided below is awesome!! I
have downloaded the tool and now have it for future use. At this time, the
first previous version it is giving me of thsi file is 12/9 which is after it
was overwritten, so the file I needed is not there. However, it will be
awesome for future use!

Thank you so much!!

Lisa

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You're welcome and sorry to hear you couldn't retrieve your file anymore.
Enjoy the holidays!