Importing from backup.pst

[David Barrish]

This weekend I reformatted the hard drive of my stand-alone desktop. It was
running Office XP Professional, including Outlook 2002. I saved backup.pst
which has a "Size" of 313 MB (329,139,200 bytes) and "Size on Disk" of 254 MB
(266,823,680 bytes). The Read Only attribute is deselected.

I reinstalled Windows XP Home Edition and reinstalled Office XP
Professional. Everything works fine. Outlook 2002 works fine and I configured
mail settings, etc. I ATTEMPTED TO IMPORT THE SAVED BACKUP.PST WHICH IS
LOCATED IN MY DOCUMENTS, BUT I RECIEVED THE FOLLOWING ERROR MESSAGE:
"...BACKUP.PST IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THIS VERSION OF THE PERSONAL FOLDERS
INFORMATION SERVICE. CONTACT YOUR ADMINISTRATOR."

Question 1: What does this message indicate, and how can I respond to it?
Question 2: I copied my (old configuaration, pre-reformat) backup.pst and
ran the copy through scanpst.exe successfully, but it only produced 2 folders
and 0 files. Then I imported it, but no data records appeared in Outlook. Is
there a different way to use Scanpst.exe, or is there a different utility I
should be using?

HELP PLEASE!!!

 

[Hal Hostetler [MVP-S/U]]

Don't import, try this instead:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010771141033.aspx
Reconnect your old Outlook data file


Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-S/U -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
KVOA Television, Tucson, AZ. NBC Channel 4
Still Cadillacin' - www.badnewsbluesband.com

 

[David Barrish]

Hal-

Thanks for the swift resonse. The resource you pointed to makes sense, and
I have attempted to open the old .pst file with no success. The problem
seems to relate to he error message I receive "...IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THIS
VERSION OF THE PERSONAL FOLDERS INFORMATION SERVICE." I only used (and
continue to use) Oulook 2002, so its not a version compatibility issue. I
feel as if I'm real close, but I'm missing one little something?!

 

[sandman]

Has this been resolved? I am having a similar issue.. What I'm tryin
to do is take the 2003 Outlook .pst file from a desktop at work an
put it on a laptop that has Outlook 2002.
Is there any known compatibility issues going from 2003 to 2002

My Original goal was just to take the "My Documents" folder in outloo
2003 export to a .pst and open it on the laptop that has 2002 (jus
cause that has all "my non-work related material" if you catch m
drift.

After reading about import/export I tried to just copy it and put i
on the laptop. But I still get the same error if I try it eithe
way.

Here's the error I get on my laptop
"backup.pst is not compatible with this version of personal folder
info service contact Administrator.

sorry for the long story. :roll

 

[Hal Hostetler [MVP S/U]]

When Outlook 2003 is involved, yes,l there can be a compatibility issue:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;839109
You receive a ".pst is not compatible" error message when you open an
Outlook 2003 .pst file in Outlook 2002, in Outlook 2000, or in Outlook 98

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-S/U -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
KVOA Television, Tucson, AZ. NBC Channel 4
Still Cadillacin' - www.badnewsbluesband.com

 

[franz]

I did this, and then I got this extreemly anoying phenomenon of two personal
folders that works as mirrors where each and every item automatically is
copied to the other folder. Each change made in one folder is automatically
done in the other. How do I resolve this?

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Create a new profile. Yours is corrupt. Then follow the instructions Hal
posted to reconnect your old data file. Do not import it.