Open PST file

[MikeKerley]

MikeKerley (newbie)

 

I accidentally permanently deleted several email folders containing valuable (to me) emails.

I ran Recuva and this pulled back 7.6gb of mail from my HDD which it then saved to my backup drive as a .pst file.

I tried to open this only to get the message to open within Outlook.

I copied the file into Outlook but when I tried to open it i got the error message that this was not a .pst file and would not allow me to open it.

I'm sure the missing mails are in this file, but I don't know how to open and view the contents so I can retrieve the material I want.

Can anyone advise, please?

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere - I have looked but nothing I have so far found seems to cover this particular issue.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Nergal]

While at this time, I personally don't have an answer for you, I've moved this thread to the recuva discussion board where it can be given attention from recuva users.

[mta]

as you have discovered PST files can only be opened from within Outlook, not double clicked on to open.

 

not sure what you mean by 'copied the file into Outlook' and I don't know your Outlook version, but the theory is....

in Outlook, File, Open, Outlook Data File, and navigate to where your PST file is.

 

I'm thinking because it has been recuva'd that it may now be corrupted.

If Outlook spits out an error when you try to open the PST file, this would lend support to that theory.

 

So now you need to run the SCANPST file which will be in the Microsoft Office folder in Program Files or Program Files(x86) for your office version.

If the file has been recovered correctly, SCANPST has a very good chance of fixing any internal errors.  It cannot however fix anything more serious if Recuva has 'stitched' the file back together from fragments.

 

At 7.6Gib, it is going to take a couple of hours to scan.

[hazelnut]

Let's wait and see who replies.

[mta]

hmmm... do you suspect another one of those @hazelnut!!

[MikeKerley]

Thanks Nergal, mta & hazelnut for responding. Sorry, should have said I'm on Outlook 2010.

I've tried SCNPST and run MS Inbox repair tool in case this was a corruption issue.

I couldn't open the "recuva'd" PST file in Outlook so I tried using a program call free PST viwer, whic did enable me to see some of the recovered files. Many seemed corrupted so I guess they may have been partly overwritten, but i couln't see any of the recently deleted files, which I would have expected since I took care not to receive any further e-mail or do anything on the PC until I had run Recuva - to avoid overwriting.

I also have a Memeo backup and tried to restore from there, but no joy either.

Getting fed up now and will probably have to resign myself to the data being lost.

PST backup does not seem that reliable and reading about disappearing files on other forums, would seem to be a not uncommon issue. I think I will take to dragging important e-mail into Windows folder to back up in future. Clumsy, but if it means I don't lose stuff - worth the aggro.

 

I will check this post out for a while in case anyone has any further advice. appreciate any help.

 

Mike

[mta]

any care you may have personally made not to receive further email or do anything on the PC with would pale into insignificance compared to what Windows would have been doing in the background.

just some of them would be pagefile, updates, AV software, caches, maintenance, event logs, and the list goes on.

 

sadly, you doing nothing is no guarantee the deleted data isn't overwritten almost straight away.

 

in my experience, I've never been able to resurrect a PST file that SCANPST said no to.  so on that front you may have to resign yourself.

 

as to future avoidance, I simply have the folder my PST's are stored in kept in my Documents folder (which is the default location for Outlook 2010) so they are automatically included in my backup of my personal stuff.