Dead Email (.pst) file?

[WKD.rEd]

I posted this on the 24 hr helpdesk, too... but I thought maybe more
specialized Outlook users might approach this differently...

I have been running Outlook 2003 for years. My .pst file is up to
about 700 megs in size. As of the last week it does not: a) accept new
incoming mail (although I see it downloads it at the bottom right), b)
allow me to delete anything (thought that might help it out a little),
c) register an error on scanpst OR Ontrack's Easyrecovery OR chkdsk on
the disk OR Norton Disk Doctor (on the same disk).

The repair programs register errors after I've shutdown Outlook (when
IT has given me a .pst error), but once they fix the error they do not
show the error as persistent. It only reappears after I try to open
Outlook again.

I'm running 2000 SP4, Office SP2, on a 2GHz machine w/ 1G memory and
two 300G hard drives (the partition outlook uses is only 120G).

ANY help would be great.

Thanks!

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

how much junk is in the deleted items folder? while it shouldn't affect
downloading new mail, if it's 'full' it will prevent you from deleting new
items. Full = up to 65,000 items (for 97-2002/compatible pst), depending on
the pst version you are using. If you've the same pst for years it could
hold much less. This same limit applies to all folders, so if all your email
is in the inbox, it could be 'full' - to fix, move messages to a new folder.

 

[WKD.rEd]

My garbage had like 1000 or so items... inbox had about 2000 items...
doesn't seem like a lot for Outlook 2003, but it's not doing anything
with the file any more... like it's write protected or something...