recovering PST file after Windows Backup

[Hans]

i always saved my PST files in the My Documents folder to make it easy to
backup & recover using the normal Windows Vista backup. When trying to
recover my files after a disk crash, all files are being restored except my
PST files. The Restore procedure of the Vista Backup & recovery tool gives an
error message stating that the PST files are either missing or corrupt.
Apperently the backup procedure uses some compression or encrypting technique
which makes PST files corrupt after backup. Does anyone know how to recover
these pst files?

 

[Roady [MVP]]

The backup feature doesn't corrupt them by backing them up but if you had
Outlook open when creating the backup, the file was in use and not a proper
copy could have been made.

Prying out a damaged file from the Windows Backup file, isn't an Outlook
issue. For that you could try asking this in a Windows Vista backup
newsgroup or a more specialized recovery group (or company even).

If you managed to get out the pst-file, then try running scanpst.exe against
it to get some meaningful data out of it but you might need a 3rd party
specialized recovery tool at this point.
See http://www.msoutlook.info/question/77

It might be a hard lesson, but consider backups worthless unless proven
otherwise by testing doing a restore while you still have the original data.

 

[K. Orland]

Run the inbox repair tool on them, it's called scanpst.exe. You can do a
simple file/folder search for them but make sure you include hidden files
and folders in your search. Please ensure that Outlook is closed when you
use the tool.

Once you locate scanpst.exe, double-click on it to open it and follow the
instructions which will include browsing to your PST file. During the scan,
if it finds and repairs errors, please run it again. Repeat until no errors
are found. Then open Outlook and use file > open, don't import your PST
files.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

It's likely the pst was in use during the backup process and that caused the
corruption. If scanpst can't recover them, you'll need to use a 3rd party
tool. See http://www.slipstick.com/problems/scanpst.asp for a list of
available tools.

If the original files on the disk are accessible you might have better luck
recovering your data from that file.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



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