restoring outlook files

[NEWMOTORGB]

I have Outlook 2002, I opened Outlook this morn and it said it is unable to
display the folder...Outlook.pst could not be opened.Someone tried to help me
and the error changed to ...is not a personal folders file.Someone did a scan
of the folder and apparently it was corrupt and now the folder is empty. I do
not know what happened to all my valuable folders & emails. It is as if it
scanned it and wiped out the corrupt files alltogether. Anyone know where I
could find them and how to restore them? Thank you so much.

 

[Richard]

When the message appears 'unable to display folder.. pst' is there a path
C:\...
If there is I am guessing the following might have happened:

Outlook was opened
pst file was opened
Outlook was closed without closing the pst file
pst file was moved or renamed
Outlook was opened again
Outlook looks for the pst file
Outlook can't find the pst file because it has been moved or renamed
error message

If you can find the pst file and either rename it to the original name or
move the file back to the original path (see above) C:\... you should be able
to get your folders/emails back.

If you can't find the pst file try doing a search on your C drive for all
pst files and then if you haven't got many it is a process of elimination.

Hope this helps.

 

[NEWMOTORGB]

Thanks for the response.I had searched for all .pst files. I believe I only
found the new one which has very little in it. I cannot find the big .pst
file which is what I'm looking for. Do you have any other ideas on where it
may have gone? I am so lost without all those emails and folders. Thanks
again!
Gary

 

[Richard]

Hi Gary

Are you on a network, if you are find out if there is autoarchiving. Check
your Outlook email folders anyway by right clicking on a folder and clicking
on properties and see if auto archiving is set up. If it is take a look at
the desination path C:\...

Does your Internet Service Provider provide archiving or email backup on
their servers. If they do see if your emails have been archived/backed up on
the server.

Do you have any additional drives other than C:\ if you do, do a search on
these as well.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Thanks for the response.I had searched for all .pst files. I believe
I only found the new one which has very little in it. I cannot find
the big .pst file which is what I'm looking for.

Did you enable searching in hidden files and folders?

 

[NEWMOTORGB]

Dear Richard,
My folders are gone also with the exception of my archive folder,(which by
the way doesn't have the missing files in it), all I have is the default
folders set up by Outlook 2002. I do have my set up email signatures still in
place. Per your suggestion, I right clicked my inbox anyway and it is not set
up for autoarchiving. I don't know if my original inbox or other folders I
made were set up or not. Most likely not, unfortunately. What doesn't make
sense is that my outlook.pst file which had over 300,000 KB was there, we did
a scan disk on it and then it went to 0 KB in the outlook.pst file. We cannot
figure out where it went, along with all my folders and contacts, etc., all
gone. I appreciate your comments, any other thoughts? Can the outlook.pst
folder change its extension to something else? Thanks.

 

[Richard]

Hello Gary

Try looking in Windows Explorer where your pst file is and look at the date
created. Just to make sure this is the file which had all you
emails/folders. Is the created date the date you first set up your archive
pst.

Also try the recycle bin and deleted items in Outlook.

When you say the pst file was scanned, was this with an anti-virus scanner.
The second error message you got about this is not a pst file could mean the
extension has changed like you said so check it is definately a .pst on the
file.

 

[Richard]

I have been doing some more investigation.

I am guessing you used the Inbox repair tool scanpst.exe.

Try looking at the folder which your pst file is in. If there is a file
with a .bak extension, then this is a back up of your lost emails. If you
have this .bak file make a copy and rename it with a .pst extension. Then
try to open this file in Outlook.

Also you may have folders named Recovered personal folders and/or Lost and
Found. See if there are any emails in these folders.

 

[NEWMOTORGB]

Richard,
We did not use the scanpst.exe, we simply used the windows scandisk which is
what caused the data in the file to go from 300,000 KB + to 0. We have no
folders with .bak in the folder where the .pst file is. I tried a search with
"recovered" and "lost and found" and come up without anything. Dead end so
far. Any further thoughts? Thank you again!
Gary

 

[Richard]

Hi Gary

You could try System Restore. Back up all your files first.

 

[Gordon]

Hi Gary

You could try System Restore. Back up all your files first.

System Restore does NOT restore data files. It only restores operating
system files.