Outlook 2003 pst Error

Hi : -
One of my colleague complaint in the morning about the slow performance of her laptop and she also noticed that whenever she open email client (Microsoft Outlook2003) she faces this issue. In the noon when she open her outlook one of the old pst file that was attached in outlook was not opening and giving an error message “unable to open the file, the file may be corrupted ……” so I went to inquire and straight away I de-attached that file and run the utility scanpst to repair that file.

During that repair phase the utility gave an error message “unable to repair pst file CRC error, please run the chkdsk to repair” and my colleague said that she get this message 2 days ago and upon restarting the system everything back to normal so she did lodge the complaint. Anyways I run chkdsk /f restarted the machine, the file got repaired or atleast system tried it. After restarting I try to run scanpst but again it failed. Now the user said just add it in outlook again and I will copy few important emails and we will not be using this file any more. Now here’s the surprising thing came when I try to connect that pst I am getting a password on it which is of 6 characters and neither the user nor I have set any password on it. She try to use all of her password but failed, so I try to crack the password couldn’t find a free tool to do so although I had one that is shareware and gives half the characters and as per the 3 characters we are 100% sure the password is not set by any of us and nobody else has access to that file.

My questions are: -

 Any free tool available to crack the password?
 Is it possible that CRC error could be the cause of this password?
 Is it possible to remove the CRC error from the file?

1. YES! http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/pst_password.html
2. I think if there was a problem with the file it could think that the password is incorrect. Read this maybe it will help explain it better than I can . http://www.nirsoft.net/articles/pst_password_bug.html
3. a CRC error means that the file is failing an integrity test. I think the only ways to "fix" the pst is scanpst/chkdsk, a file recovery utility, or you can try something that trys and forces to extract data from the corrupt pst such as http://www.olfolders.de/Lang/English...y/download.htm

Good luck!

Are you working with an exchange server...if you are disconnect from the server and rename\move\delete the PST. Outlook will create a new one when you connect back to the Exchange. If you are working with exhange set a profile up on another machine and see if you have the same issues?



How big is the PST....they do corrupt when the get over 3 gigs or so.

Have you tried exporting to a new PST.....or the individual folders..Inbox.pst, Contacts.pst etc....(include all sub folders).....

IMHO...users should not be keeping this much mail in Outlook....all attachments should be saved outside outlook...this is my never ending battle with users....:rolleyes:

MLF

hi fanacool,

greetings from across the border :p

imho outlook is unstable post 1gb of mails.

maybe this would help..

http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/recover_deleted.htm

cheers

morganlefay
We are not using Exchange here, this user download emails directly from Web so the first solution not possible :-(.

Yes i know as per microsoft the max size is around 2.99 Gb but believe me i have encounter pst exceeding 1GB or more than that start making trouble. The one i am currently talking about is less than 3 Gigs.

Exporting to a new pst How? Since now i am unable to attach it in outlook the only way i could do this is after i get the password crack. Am i right ?

Well this user of mine is really dumb, the most important thing she needs to get from that pst is send items so she can trace what quotations she has sent to clients and stuff like that....... although she would have saved all those quotation in system too with the respective client name but ALAS!

chizra
Greetings from myside too :-) I have followed the procedure to receover the deleted items once but my friend i think the current situation is something different.
Why not you come here and solve this issue, all you have to do is CROSS THE BORDER ;-)

I will try to crack the password and let you all update!!!!!

Good thing i have managed to Crack the password with the utility, now the issue remains the same when i try to copy that pst contents to other it fails.

Also scanpst.exe is not fixing the pst file at the moment !!!!!!

Same error showing, there are errors in the pst file please run the chkdsk on the drive and try running the utility again.......

Need help in moving the contents! The other utility to copy the pst to other one is also not working and hanging the machine.

I have enclosed screenshot of the error message I am getting while copying the pst using copypst utility.

Copy the pst to another machine and try and import there???

Maybe you have a failing harddrive seeing it wants you to run chkdsk??

also...stop any AV or other utilities that may be scanning the file while you are trying to access??

MLF

If scan pst will not fix your issue the CRC errors are because there is a problem with the file itself. I would say the data in that file is gone. You could pay a data recovery company to dig through what you have and see what they could restore. I've never used an 3rd party product that could recover a PST from an error that scanpst could not also fix.

Teach your user how to backup as a restore is likely your only option. I would also check out the hardware for a failing diskdrive.

Oh.. I have several pst's that are over 1GB in size and I've never had any issue. You just have to manage them properly and watch the maximum size. Outlook 2003 can handle up to 18GB pst files. Pre-outlook2003 can only do up to 2GB.