Restore Permanently Deleted Email Outlook 2003

[Tenacity9]

I have by mistake deleted some emails and then permanently deleted them from
my Deleted Items folder.

I don't have a Microsoft Exchange Server e-mail account, so I can't do the
fix described at
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA011165281033.aspx or related
fixes. This is on a stand alone computer.

My understanding is that the .pst file still has the permanently deleted
emails until the file is compressed, and a leading character, etc. has been
altered so they appear permanently deleted. How to restore in an inexpensive
way?

A suggested fix is to use a Hex Editor to alter some characters in the .pst,
re-save the .pst, and use the SCANPST file to repair what appears to be a
corrupted .pst, which will cause the Permanently Deleted emails to be
repaired and then show up in Deleted Items.

Problem is that, after I tried this and re-saved, SCANPST gives an error
message that it doesn't recognize the re-saved file as a proper .pst file so
it will not work on it.

Are there any step by step suggestions as how to make the Hex Editor fix
work? Alternatively, are there any other workarounds to restore the
Permanently Deleted Emails, without having to buy a specialized program to do
the restoration?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

A suggested fix is to use a Hex Editor to alter some characters in the .pst,
re-save the .pst, and use the SCANPST file to repair what appears to be a
corrupted .pst, which will cause the Permanently Deleted emails to be
repaired and then show up in Deleted Items.

Problem is that, after I tried this and re-saved, SCANPST gives an error
message that it doesn't recognize the re-saved file as a proper .pst file so
it will not work on it.

See if this helps:
http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/restoredeleteditemsfromanoutlookpst.htm

Start making regular backups and this will no longer be an issue.