'Outlook.pst is not a personal folders file'

[Guest]

My partner went to open her Outlook this morning (O2003, XPPro), and got the
message:

"Unable to start processing services. The file c:\...\Outlook\Outlook.pst
is not a personal folders file"

When Outlook is opened from a desktop shortcut, the error message comes up
once the Outlook window has opened, but a shortcut on the taskbar gives this
message before Outlook can load.

I notice in Windows Explorer that in the Outlook folder: the dates on her
yearly archives seem to be updated each time Outlook is opened, and the
contents of these is still intact; but the date on the Outlook.pst folder
stays on 27 May, and it is disturbingly showing '0kb'!

Interestingly, messages can be found by Google Desktop Search, but,
unfortunately, if any attachments on these are clicked, this opens Outlook
with the same message.


Searching for similar on Google, I found one fix for 'unable to start
processing services', which was to rename either OutItems.log, or
Offitems.log. We do not appear to have an 'offitems.log', but I found an
OutItems.log and renamed it. Unfortunately this made no difference.

What has happened; and what, if anything can I do to get her proper pst
folder back?

Any lifesaving help would be much appreciated!

S

 

[Brian Tillman]

My partner went to open her Outlook this morning (O2003, XPPro), and
got the message:

"Unable to start processing services. The file
c:\...\Outlook\Outlook.pst is not a personal folders file"

Please don't multipost.

 

[Guest]

Sorry Brian,

I did not know which of the two Outlook groups was the main one - generally
use OE myself. Perhaps you can enlighten me?

Regards,

S

 

[Brian Tillman]

I did not know which of the two Outlook groups was the main one -
generally use OE myself. Perhaps you can enlighten me?

Technically, no one should post in microsoft.public.outlook, but that and
this are used interchangeably. Crosspost instead and then those who see it
in one group (with a newsreader) will have it marked read in the other group
automatically.

 

[Guest]

Technically, no one should post in microsoft.public.outlook, but that and
this are used interchangeably. Crosspost instead and then those who see
it in one group (with a newsreader) will have it marked read in the other
group automatically.

Thanks Brian,

I didn't know cross-posts worked like that. It is good to hear the
reasoning behind these things.
I'll unsubscribe to public.outlook, after the current thread.

Cheers,

S

 

[Pat Willener]

If Outlook.pst is the main Personal Folders file, and the size is indeed
0KB, then something disastrous has happened. I see only two options
- restore from a recent backup;
- a professional PST file recovery company (scanpst will not help when
the file has shrunk to 0).

 

[Guest]

Hi Pat, thanks.

It turns out that our Google Desktop can find mail that no longer exists as
far as Outlook is concerned, so things turn out to be not quite as desperate
as it seemed at first. Certainly it did not help that we had not
appreciated that all the 'boxes' in Outlook were not individual pst folders
in their own right. (Well worth sticking with OE as far as I am concerned!)

From the event logs it appears that Outlook hung on closing one day, and
then 'windows was unable to load the registry' on the next. Followed by
'cannot load the locally stored profile', with 'DETAIL - The process cannot
access the file because it is being used by another process.

then: 'Windows has backed up this user's profile. Windows will automatically
try to use the backed up profile the next time this user logs on.'
"Windows cannot find the local profile and is logging you on with a
temporary profile. Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you
log off."

And then back to 'windows was unable to load... and so on.

These message strings have not come back since making a new pst, but I would
like to know where the 'backup' that the error log says it made is, if such
exists!

Can you recommend software that can recover corrupt pst files direct from
the hard drive? (Or how we might recover them to Outlook with GD for that
matter.)

Kind regards,

S
(Incidentally, my spell checker wants me to replace pst with 'pest': Quite!)

 

[Pat Willener]

Desktop search engines will be able to find past mail from their
indexes, even if the original mail doesn't exist any more.

Sorry, I am not an expert on data recovery - my recovery method is
always from the last backup, should the need arise.

 

[Jhon Steve]

Hi,

You can use Outlook recovery tools to repair your PST file. Below is a list of them:

http://www.datanumen.com/aor/compare.htm

Most of them provide a free demo so you can try first.

Steve

 

[bipsa]

spamlet wrote on 05/30/2008 06:08 ET :

My partner went to open her Outlook this morning (O2003, XPPro), and got the
message:

"Unable to start processing services. The file c:...OutlookOutlook.pst
is not a personal folders file"

When Outlook is opened from a desktop shortcut, the error message comes up
once the Outlook window has opened, but a shortcut on the taskbar gives this
message before Outlook can load.

I notice in Windows Explorer that in the Outlook folder: the dates on her
yearly archives seem to be updated each time Outlook is opened, and the
contents of these is still intact; but the date on the Outlook.pst folder
stays on 27 May, and it is disturbingly showing '0kb'!

Interestingly, messages can be found by Google Desktop Search, but,
unfortunately, if any attachments on these are clicked, this opens Outlook
with the same message.


Searching for similar on Google, I found one fix for 'unable to start
processing services', which was to rename either OutItems.log, or
Offitems.log. We do not appear to have an 'offitems.log', but I found an
OutItems.log and renamed it. Unfortunately this made no difference.

What has happened; and what, if anything can I do to get her proper pst
folder back?

Any lifesaving help would be much appreciated!

S

The error 'outlook.pst is not a personal folder file' suggests that the PST
file
is not recognized and the very reason for the same could be that the same is
corrupted or damaged for any reason and this arises issues in accessing those
files and thus the message. To sort out the problems in mere efficient manner,
it is ideally suggested to try and use the Outlook PST Repair utility.

http://www.outlook-2007repair.com/m...ow-to-fix-msncon32-dll-cannot-be-loaded-error