PST File Corrupted after Server Migration

Microsoft Outlook PST files can get corrupt with limited recovery chances that could lead to permanent data loss. The file is prone to several ailments, such as unexpected power failure, network interruption, virus infection, network sharing and application errors. Since the file stores all email messages and other Outlook objects, PST corruption often leads to loss of valuable information. You should try to repair these issues using Scanpst.exe application, which comes with all installation options of Outlook. But due to limited repair functionalities of the tool, it might fail. When it occurs, a suitable backup can help. If this too fails, you are recommended PST Recovery using high-end tools available to successfully scan and repair the corrupted PST file.

To illustrate such scenarios, suppose .pst files are stored on a primary file server. You migrate your existing file server for some performance and other issues. After the process is successfully done, you might observe some of the clients encountering .pst file corruption issues. This behavior is seen with only few .pst files, which cannot be accessed by any means. The client might come across symptoms, such as failure when trying to open Outlook and/or a set of error messages displaying when performing typical mail operations.

Cause

PST files are not designed for file sharing. Thus, they don't provide any security to data and long-term retention when used in enterprise environment. Microsoft suggests to use them typically as a local copy of your email messages.

The described issue might occur if client tries to access the file server when server migration is being performed.

Solution

Damaged PST files can be repaired using Outlook built-in tool, called Inbox Repair Tool or Scanpst.exe. To run the tool, you should perform these steps:

1. Exit Outlook and click Start-> Search or Find (based on the operating system in use)
2. Click All files and folders option in Search window and type 'scanpst.exe'. Before doing so, you should make sure that 'Show hidden files and folders' setting is enabled as scanpst.exe is a hidden file.
3. Click to Search and you will see the scanpst.exe file in the search results after it completes.
4. Open the file by double-clicking it
5. Specify or browse to the location of corrupted PST file
6. Click to Start the repair process
7. Exit the tool and try to open the PST file

If you still cannot open the file, it is severely damaged and cannot be repaired using Inbox Repair Tool. To repair such files, you should use third-party PST Repair Tool. Such applications are highly competent to use advanced scanning algorithms for damaged .pst files and to Recover PST without harming any data.

Outlook PST Repair is an unmatched PST File Recovery solution to repair and restore corrupted Outlook PST file. It is a safe repair product that works in each instance of PST file corruption. This PST Recovery Tool is compatible with Outlook 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002 and 2000. It can restore all file contents including emails, notes, journals, appointments, contacts and others.

How to Solve Outlook 2007 Crashes?

Outlook 2007, the latest version of Microsoft Office Outlook, is generally considered as the reliable and safer version as compared to its former counterparts. But, Outlook users still observe frustrating experiences with Outlook 2007. Outlook 2007 might crash randomly while you are performing general tasks like sending or receiving emails, starting or existing Outlook and others. One of the typical causes for Outlook to behave in this manner is PST file corruption, which leaves you with no other option than to restore from backup or use PST Recovery tools (if backup is invalid or absent).

There can be a wide variety of reasons causing Outlook 2007 to crash. Some of them are listed below:

1. Outdated Outlook installation
2. Add-ins or extensions issues
3. Problematic Outlook profile
4. Corrupted Outlook installation
5. Damaged Outlook data file (PST)
6. Damaged Windows profile
7. System specific problems

Solution

To fix Outlook 2007 crashing issues, you should consider these methods:

1. You need to ensure if the crash occurs when you perform a particular task, for example while opening a particular email message or meeting on calendar. If this is the case, you can perform steps like deleting the specific item or doing a similar task as per the cause.

2. You can try updating Outlook installation with the latest cumulative updates available

3. Microsoft Outlook provides different command-line switches that allow you to start Outlook after cleaning few application settings. Based on the specific problem in existence, you can use these switches to troubleshoot. For example, if crash occurs when reminders are fired, you can use /cleanreminders switch to clean and regenerate them. Whereas, if issue is related to invalid profile keys, you can use /cleanprofile switch.

4. Outlook installation might be damaged. So, you can try reinstalling Microsoft Outlook 2007.

5. Starting Outlook using /safe mode allows you to start it without loading many of the customizations, Exchange Client Extensions, reading pane, customized toolbars, and COM add-ins, Form regions, macros etc. So, you can use it to start Outlook. If you find that Outlook doesn’t crash when you start it in /safe mode, you need to check the list of disabled items to see if any of them relate to the type of kind of crash you suffer. If this is the case, you can disable, remove or rename the item, as per the case.

6. To check if the issue is Outlook profile specific, you can create a test profile containing no email accounts. Since it doesn’t have any email account, it will not send and receive any email messages. You can try adding the existing PST file to see if PST is not damaged. It will create a PIM profile. If it doesn’t crashes, you should continue working with this new profile.

7. You can try to test the new Outlook profile with your email accounts as all the times, Outlook profile might not be the issue.

8. If Outlook crashes after adding PST, the file might be damaged. Thus, you need to repair it using Inbox Repair Tool or alternatively by using commercial PST Repair tools.

9. If Outlook crashes after trying a new profile, you should try creating and using a new Windows profile. If problem gets solved, you should keep continuing work with this new profile and delete the earlier one.

10. If testing through new Windows profile doesn’t help, the issue could be machine-related. It could occur due to problems like faulty RAM, damaged files, wrong data in HKEY_Local_Machine hive, incompatible software or faulty Windows. So to check this behavior, you can perform steps like using Outlook on a different system, checking Office installation, performing Windows clean boot, replacing the corrupted RAM and other similar steps.

About PST Repair Tools

PST file repair tools are the commercial applications that are specifically designed to scan a damaged PST file. Built with indigenous technology to repair the file, these PST Recovery software encompass graphically rich user interface, advanced file repair options, read-only design and more. You can make use of these PST Repair products in any case when you observe your PST file as damaged.

Outlook PST Repair is the finest PST File Recovery application with support to Outlook 2007, 2003, 2002 and 2000. It restores all PST file objects (like emails, notes, journals, tasks, appointments etc.) and provides advanced PST Recovery functionalities. It is compatible with Windows Vista, XP, 2003, 2000 and NT. It also provides PST Password Recovery and Split PST features.

Inbox Repair Tool Fails to Fix 'An error has occurred which caused...'

Most of the corruption issues encountered in Microsoft Outlook PST files occur due to power failure, not closing the application properly or Outlook errors. The built-in utility, scanpst.exe, is competent to fix minor corruptions with the file. However, most of the PST file corruption problems cannot be resolved by this Inbox Repair Tool. To solve them, you must use a third-party product that could scan the corrupted file efficiently and restore it at a safe location.

To exemplify, consider a situation when you to try start Outlook or open the .pst file, but it reports corruption errors. To repair the file, you run scanpst.exe tool, but it too fails. You encounter an error message, which is similar to below:

“An error has occurred which caused the scan to be stopped. No changes have been made to the scanned file.”

Cause

Two possible reasons for this error to occur are:

1.You are using a Outlook 97-2002 PST file. Scanpst cannot work for the file that is bigger than 2 GB in size.
2.PST is severely damaged and cannot be repaired using Inbox Repair Tool.

Solution

You should consider these suggestions to repair such a damaged PST file:

1. An oversized and corrupted PST file should be first truncated using 2 GB Truncation (Pst2gb.exe) utility. Thus, you can download the tool and use it to crop the file under 2 GB. You can then try to repair the corrupted file by running scanpst.

2. If you are using a Outlook 2003 or 2007 PST file or 2 GB file size limitation is not the issue, you should opt for better solutions of PST recovery. (However, if a valid backup is available, you should delete the damaged PST file and restore from it). There are several third-party solutions available that can repair the damaged PST file.

PST fix tools come with interactive design and advanced scanning algorithms to examine the corrupted PST file efficiently. The tools can work even if Inbox Repair Tool fails to do so. Such software provide you advanced file repair options that prove safe too.

Outlook PST Repair is a fully-featured Inbox Repair Tool with powerful features to repair damaged or corrupted PST file. It is a safe tool with support to Outlook 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002 and 2000. The software is easy-to-use with self-descriptive interface and can repair while Inbox Repair Tool failure. It recovers and restores all PST file objects at a safe location.

Inbox Repair Tool Fails To Repair PST File Due to Internal Errors

Corruption is a common problem with application files including PST file Microsoft Outlook. Corruption prevents you to access data from the file and thus cause critical data loss situations. To overcome these problems, you are required to opt for PST Recovery.

To repair corrupted PST file, Microsoft Outlook provides an inbuilt utility, which is known as scanpst.exe or Inbox Repair Tool. It examines the damage PST file, finds the error and then correct them. In some corruption scenarios, it can help you in getting your valuable data recovered.

Although, Inbox Repair Tool is helpful in some cases but it does not work in all cases of PST corruption. Sometimes when you try to repair PST file using this utility, you might come across the following error message and the process fails halfway:

“Internal errors were found in this file. They must be repaired for this file to work correctly.”

With this error message, the repair process fails and the file remains corrupted. It does not let you access data until you perform PST Recovery to repair it.

Grounds of this problem

You may face this behavior of Inbox Repair Tool when you scan a Microsoft SharePoint Team Services folder which is synchronized with default PST file. The scanpst.exe tool examines only for standard Microsoft Outlook folder, including Deleted Items folder. The Microsoft SharePoint Team Services PST file does not contain Deleted Items folder, thus Inbox Repair Tool gives this error message.

The Inbox Repair Tool may also fail due to serious corruption to the PST file. This tool can not handle the serious corruption issues like corruption due to virus attack, missing file objects and other reasons.

Resolution

You can fix this problem by repairing PST file using third party tools, known as PST Recovery Software. These software are particularly designed to handle even the severe PST corruption issues. They work in most of the corruption scenarios.

These software have right graphical user interface and thus allow you to easily recovery all of your PST objects including emails, notes, journal, tasks, contacts, calendar entries and other personal information. These PST Recovery Software save the recovered file in .PST format that can easily be imported in Microsoft Outlook to use it.

Outlook PST Repair is the best ever made and the most powerful Recover PST tool that can repair damaged PST file in the majority of corruption scenarios. It works well with Microsoft Outlook 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002 and 2000. It is compatible with Windows Vista, 2003, XP, 2000 and NT4 (SP6).

PST File Corruption Due to Damaged Outlook Nickname Cache

Microsoft Outlook is a popular and widely used email application, which stores emails and other data in the form of PST (Personal Folder File). You can send and receive emails using Outlook and can use it with Microsoft Exchange Server to create a collaborative messaging environment. But sometimes when you send an email in MS Office Outlook 2003 to a recipient, which is selected from Outlook nickname cache, email address of recipient is shown as SMPT:????????. This behavior might spread to other mail recipients when any recipient replies to your email. Along with this, you may also encounter some error message while opening an email or other item. This is caused by damaged PST file or Outlook profile. To work around such issues, PST File Recovery is required.

Cause

This issue could occur if the Microsoft Outlook nickname cache file is damaged on sender's client computer. Particularly this behavior might take place if recipient's email address is saved as an ANSI string in Unicode PR_SMTP_ADDRESS_W (0x39fe001f) property field in MS Outlook nickname cache file.

Such type of Microsoft Office Outlook profile corruption usually takes place when the MS Exchange Profile Update Tool (Exprofre.exe) isn't run after move a cross-site mailbox. You must run this utility after moving the cross-site mailbox.
* Exprofre.exe: After moving an Exchange server mailbox across an administrative group, a MS Outlook profile that was in use for this mailbox will not function properly. Mailbox server may refer Outlook to correct server after the mailbox has been moved within an administrative group, but the process does not work properly. After such move, you must update your profile for complete and correct working. For this purpose, Exchange Profile Update tool (Exprofre.exe) has been created.

Solution

In order to sort out this issue and perform PST File Recovery, carry out below actions:
1.Apply the hotfix 921582.
2.Enable the hotfix.
3.Reset Outlook nickname cache profile.

How to enable hotfix

After applying the hotfix, you need to enable it. Follow underwritten steps to enable hotfix:

1.Exit Microsoft Office Outlook 2003.
2.Click Start, click Run, write regedit and then click OK button.
3.Locate and click below registry subkey:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Options\General
4.After selecting the subkey, which is specified in above step, point to New in Edit menu and click DWORD value.
5.Type ValidateSmtpAddressForNNC and click Modify button.
6.In Value data box, type 1 and click OK button.
7.In File menu, click Exit to exit the Registry Editor.

How to reset Outlook nickname cache profile

Microsoft Office Outlook maintains a nickname list, which is used by both the automatic completion feature and automatic name checking features. This list is automatically generated when you use Microsoft Outlook. If this cache gets damaged, Outlook might not identify and recipients and possibly the PST file may face corruption situations. In order to reset MS Office Outlook nickname cache, go through below steps:

1.Exit Microsoft Office Outlook.
2.Click Start button and then click Search.
3.In Search Companion, click All files or folders.
4.In All or part of the file name box, type *.NK2.
5.In Look In box, click to select your hard drive.
6.Click More advanced options, select Search hidden files and folders check box.
7.Click Search button.
8.Right click .NK2 file with name of your MS Outlook profile, which you want to reset, and click Rename.
9.Rename .NK2 file to profilename.bak and press Enter key.
10.Quit Microsoft Windows Explorer.
11.Restart Microsoft Outlook.

The above process is helpful in case of corruption to the Outlook nickname file cache. But in your Outlook PST file is damaged, then you are required to repair and restore the damaged file using powerful and advanced third party PST Recovery Software.

These PST Recovery applications are capable of methodically scanning the damaged PST file using high-end scanning algorithms. With interactive and simple graphical user interface, these PST Recovery Software do not demand sound and prior technical skills from your side. Due to read-only and non-destructive nature, the PST Recovery tools are completely safe to use.

Outlook PST Recovery is an advanced and effective PST Recovery tool to retrieve all of the PST file objects. It supports recovery from Microsoft Outlook 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002 (XP) and 2000. This software is compatible with Microsoft Windows Vista, 2003, XP, 2000 and NT4 (SP6).