How do I move current faulty pst to backup and set up a new pst?

[htohlsen]

Yesterday I had my laptop turn itself off, probably because of overheating.
When I started it again Outlook can read but not write to the outlook.pst
file. I've tried to run scanpst.exe but it freezes everything but the mouse
about 6% in to the first step scan and I have to cold boot the laptop. I've
tried copying outlook.pst to a different folder, a usb memory stick and via
LAN to another pc but no luck, the copy locks up and never finishes. I have
also run chkdsk several times and it recovered some misallocated sectors so
something did go wrong with the file system.

I use Plaxo (www.plaxo.com) to synchronize contacts, calendar, tasks and
notes with another pc and the data is also saved with Plaxo so I have
everything but the emails.

How do I make Outlook move the current outlook.pst file to a position as a
former pst file which can still be accessed and create a new outlook.pst to
use as the standard file?

I'm using Outlook 2007, Windows XP Media Center with all updates and service
packs available. NTFS file system on the hdd.


I've seen other posts here referring to 3rd party products to recover data,
but seriously, this file corruption thing has been an issue since I began
working with pc's and Microsoft products over a decade ago, how come the only
program available to help, scanpst.exe fails so quickly, is it still a big
surprise to Microsoft that this is likely to happen with the current
technologies so make products that are capable of dealing with it?

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

How do I make Outlook move the current outlook.pst file to a position as a
former pst file which can still be accessed and create a new outlook.pst to
use as the standard file?

Open the Mail applet in Control Panel, use the Data Files button to add a new
data file and the Set as Default button to make it the delivery location.
Then whet you start Outlook, the new PST will contain your default folders and
the old PST will be a secondary PST.

I've seen other posts here referring to 3rd party products to recover data,
but seriously, this file corruption thing has been an issue since I began
working with pc's and Microsoft products over a decade ago, how come the
only
program available to help, scanpst.exe fails so quickly, is it still a big
surprise to Microsoft that this is likely to happen with the current
technologies so make products that are capable of dealing with it?

I suspect that in the near future, since Microsoft will be making the internal
format of the PST public, there will be great recovery tools available. I
doubt Microsoft will dedicate any additional effort to enhance SCANPST.

 

[htohlsen]

Open the Mail applet in Control Panel, use the Data Files button to add a new
data file and the Set as Default button to make it the delivery location.
Then whet you start Outlook, the new PST will contain your default folders and
the old PST will be a secondary PST.

Thank you very much, that did the trick.

I'm wondering why you can't access this from inside Outlook but have to go
through the control panel to get at it, being able to do it in Outlook would
make sense.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

I'm wondering why you can't access this from inside Outlook but have to go
through the control panel to get at it, being able to do it in Outlook would
make sense.

You could do this from within Outlook as well. Tools>Account Settings>Data
Files takes you to the same place. After adding the new PST and making it the
default, you need to stop and restart Outlook. I prefer to do it while
Outlook isn't loaded, that's all.