Outlook PST Repair

coolVariable · 07-27-2009, 06:32 PM

Trying to fix/repair/recover a 20GB outlook PST file.

Scanpst crashes while trying to fix the file.
And scanpst is no good anyhow since it discards any information where the header info is corrupt. Last time I tried scanpst it 'discarded' half the data in a pst file (1.5GB went down to 750MB).

What are good alternatives?
Google is surprisingly unhelpful (a lot of pst info out there is for office xp or older when pst files were hard limited to 2GB and that caused most of the issues).

Nothinman · 07-28-2009, 08:24 AM

I doubt you'll find much since PST files are a sort of black tarpit for email that only MS seems to understand. I've used readpst on Linux to make a Maildir from mine at work from time to time but never tried it on a broken PST.

Snapster · 07-28-2009, 11:30 AM

20GB pst, damn! Last time I ran into problems with a pst, I had to split the file up using a binary/hex editor and delete chunks and creating mini pst's with less info within. At least I got the info back but it was very time consuming.

techmanc · 07-28-2009, 08:00 PM

So sad but curious why you didn't have a backup?

redbeard1 · 08-01-2009, 07:02 PM

Is it possible to run an archive on it? I have seen where the 2 gig limit was reached, but an archive completed successfully, and then by running the compact utility, got the file below the 2 gig limit. Hopefully this would work on a 20 gig file.

I would also suggest that before you continue on, that you make a backup copy of the pst file so you have it in case something you try corrupts it worse.

I did some quick checking and it does not appear that the old crop pst tool from MS is listed as working for a 2007 20 gig file. The old tool would crop some portion of the oversized file, you could not choose what, to get the file below the size limit, so that the scanpst tool could work.

MS article about pst repairs

Pay Recovery software