Corrupt OST Files in Outlook 2003
About a week ago I was sitting in my office when I needed to find an email I had sent the previous week. As anyone would I go into Outlook (2003) when I’m presented with the below dialog box.
Broken OST Dialog
Which, basically, told me that my OST file was corrupted and I should run Scanpst.exe against the file to repair it. “OK”, I thought, “simple…”.
Where does outlook 2003 store ost files?
My computer had other thoughts though. First, I couldn’t find Scanpst.exe anywhere but after about 20 minutes of using Windows freaking awesomely great searching tool I found it.
On Vista (Service Pack 1) Scanpst.exe location was in:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033
During the research for the issue I found that it could also be in any of the below directories too:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12 C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033
Now that Scanpst.ext was found I tried it but it only works on PST files, not OST files like I needed so I ran Scanost.exe instead. It returned this error message:
15:44:02 Beginning offline folder file integrity check.
15:44:02 Performing initial synchronization.
15:44:02 Synchronizer Version 11.0.8200
15:44:02 Synchronizing Mailbox ‘Eric Lamb’
15:44:02 Synchronizing Hierarchy
15:44:02 1 folder(s) updated in offline store
15:44:02 Synchronizing server changes in folder ‘Calendar’
15:44:02 Downloading from server ‘my.domain.local’
15:44:02 Synchronizing server changes in folder ‘Drafts’
15:44:02 Downloading from server ‘my.domain.local’
15:44:03 Synchronizing server changes in folder ‘Inbox’
15:44:03 Downloading from server ‘my.domain.local’
15:44:03 Synchronizing local changes in folder ‘Sent Items’
15:44:03 Uploading to server ‘my.domain.local’
15:44:03 1 item(s) updated in online folder
15:44:03 Downloading from server ‘my.domain.local’
15:44:03 Terminated in error
15:44:03 [80040600-501-80040600-560]
15:44:03 The client operation failed.
15:44:03 Microsoft Exchange Server Information Store
15:44:03 For more information on this failure, click the URL below: REMOVED FOR SPACE
Shit…
So I had to run Scanpst.exe against my Inbox.ost file whether it wanted to or not. I had to change the View Type to OST to see the OST files.
Inbox Repair Tool
Wasn’t sure if this would do anything though; just an educated guess because Scanost.exe failed to do anything.
Inbox Repair Tool
After about 30 minutes it let me know it had found errors and whether I wanted to fix. 10 minutes later and I was good.
Email
Twitter
Do you know a very nice application Advanced Outlook Repair. It is a powerful tool to recover messages, folders and other objects from corrupt or damaged Microsoft Outlook PST files.
It’s nice and all but the price of $249 is pretty absurd man. Unless that thing comes with fairy dust or a unicorn horn… that’d be pretty awesome actually.
I used to come with the problem,and i have solved it with a popular Outlook recovery tool called Advanced Outlook Repair . It is a powerful tool to recover messages, folders and other objects from corrupt or damaged Microsoft Outlook PST files. Detailed information about Advanced Outlook Repair can be found at http://www.datanumen.com/aor/.
Wow thanks for the tips. I will try the scanpst. I have used it to cut over sized .pst files and repair them but never thought about using it on an .ost file.
As for zwr .. lol there is nothing like a free plug and link. I think the popular out look recovery tool that Eric mentions here is what ill use. scanpst and scanost
You can either first convert ost to pst and then try scanpst.exe to repair corrupt .ost file or
A very nice pst repair application to repair corrupt .pst file at very reasonable price. The software does repair & recover corrupt .pst file by using powerful algorithms.
I have a right solution OST to PST Converter