Corrupted Personal Folders in Outlook

When a Personal Folder is corrupted and will not open, it is possible to repair it using the scanpst.exe utility.

· Most of the time, reaching the limit of size of a pst (i.e., being near the 2 GB size) will cause corruption of the file
· User unable to move items into the PST Problems opening the PST

If the size is an issue we should advice user about creating a new PST.

If the user is simply not able to access the old PST file, attempt the scanpst.exe utility by following the steps below:

• Create a backup copy of the current PST file.
• Click Windows Start button and choose Find.
• Select All Files or Folders.

Type scanpst.exe in the file name field and click Find Now. In the list of found files, double-click the scanpst.exe file 

Click the Browse button and search for the desired .pst file to repair. Once the .pst file has been found, select it and then click the Start button

NOTE: The process takes a while (so if you are planning to run the tool on a personal folder, it is better to explain user that he/she will not be able to access outlook while the process is going on, and that it could take really a lot of time depending on how big the file is or on how many errors it contains). If there is an error during the repair, there will be an option to make a back up of the file before you attempt any repairs - Always click “Yes” to these prompts. When the repair finishes, hopefully the user will be able to open Outlook and try to access the Personal Folder