Backup failure for Outlook.pst

[Lon]

I have an HP laptop running Windows XP and have Outlook 2003. I have never
been able to get a backup of this file. I backup to an external Maxtor hard
drive. I formerly used Retrospect Express HD and everything on the computer
would backup except Outlook.pst. I recently switched my backup software to
Symantec's Norton 360 and the same occurs. During backup I have Outlook
closed. I make sure no other processes are using Outlook. I have turned off
virus checking and firewall software, all to no avail. I tried copying the
Outlook.pst file directly to the hard drive (without using backup software)
and I get a message: "Cannot copy Outlook: The request could not be performed
because of an I/O device error."
I tried copying the Outlook.pst to another computer via my home network and
it wouldn't allow it either.
Could the problem be the size of the file? It is 712,273 KB.
Please help!

 

[Roady [MVP]]

No, this sounds like it has nothing to do with Outlook itself but that your
pst-file happens to be on a location on your hard disk that is physically
"broken".

Before anything else, create a new pst-file in Outlook (File-> New-> Outlook
Data File...) and copy (do not use move) the content from your original
pst-file to the newly created one. Close Outlook and you should be able to
make a backup of the newly created pst-file (unless your hard disk has any
more bad sectors).

You can then start with troubleshooting the hard disk for errors. HP support
probably has some tools for this which you can use to determine if it is
really a hardware issue. If so, ask them about getting a replacement.