Can't open PST file scanpst finds no errors

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brent Wheeler
  • Start date Start date
B

Brent Wheeler

Hey,

We have a network user who has a pst file from Outlook 2000 which
won't open when I try to attach to it. It's not gigantic 630 megs,
well below the 2 gig point. I've run scanpst on it twice and it finds
no errors. I've tried to import it into Outlook, however outlook
quits responding every time. It wouldn't open on the network drive so
I moved it to the users local desktop for speed.

Have any of you reading this had this problem and if so, how did you
fix or not fix?

Thanks
Brent Wheeler
Memphis
 
most of the time Outlook is still locking the file. Try killing mapisp32.exe
and/or Outlook.exe or just reboot every computer you tried to open the pst
on just to make sure Outlook doesn't have a lock on it.

Does Outlook give you any error and are you able to open Outlook whithout
the pst-file connected?
 
Does Outlook give you any error and are you able to open Outlook without
the pst-file connected?
Click to expand...
No it just won't open the file... It just locks up and gets the old
"not responding" message in task manager.

I'm remote controlling the pc using SMS so maybe if I had the user
reboot and try again. It opens his other pst file with no problems.
Both are local on his desktop. I might copy the file to my computer
and try to fix it where I don't have the sluggishness of remote.

Brent
 
alright! Good Luck and let us know

Brent Wheeler said:
No it just won't open the file... It just locks up and gets the old
"not responding" message in task manager.

I'm remote controlling the pc using SMS so maybe if I had the user
reboot and try again. It opens his other pst file with no problems.
Both are local on his desktop. I might copy the file to my computer
and try to fix it where I don't have the sluggishness of remote.

Brent
Click to expand...
 
Ok, here's an update. I was able to open the users file by copying it
to my pc and attaching in my Outlook. My question is does Outlook
keep any kind of Index which it uses to process pst files it connects
to. Maybe since the pst file was new to mine it had to import and
rebuild from scratch…. Who knows.

In any case if was there was a definitive book or website explaining
the nuts and bolts of Outlook and exactly what is stored in a pst file
and how outlook handles it. If anyone out there knows, I would
appreciate it. My company stores lots of PST files everywhere
throughout the state, and it seems that part of my job is pst file
maintenance..

Every once and a while I have to copy the file to the users local
drive, get them to clean it up, compact it and copy it back to the
network drive. (Outlook doesn't like to compact over network drives
because of the latency)… I know beef up the exchange server… that
would be my choice, however I don't set IT policy. The suggestion has
been made up the org chart.

Thanks
Brent Wheeler
 
Good to hear you saved the users e-mail. Managing pst-files is hell, I know.
I don't think Outlook creates any kind of index for pst-files. His problem
my also indicate a mail-profile corruption. You might want to recreate that.

About your question what is stored in a pst file; I'm wondering too.
Everytime a user does something weird, settings are saved in the pst file
and for the things you might expect that they are saved in the pst file they
are not. Besides from the data, views and forms are also saved in the pst
file. AutoArchive to what I believe are also saved but it also needs to be
enabled in the mail-profile Outlook runs on.

To add to your compact; it does work over a mapped network drive. It takes
like forever though even on a 100Mbit connection. Learning users to clean up
their pst-files and use compact more often or use it before lunchtime (or a
combination of both) could stall the purchase of the Enterprise edition of
Exchange. Also; how big is your public folders databse? You could create a
folder called "department mail" and let someone of the department create
subfolders in it for the users. Archived mail is now easy accessible and
still has all the benefits of Exchange. It will also reduce the amount of
archived personal mail (mainly containing "funny" pics, audio, videos and
other large non-relevant data).

Just my thoughts, I'm interested in yours.
 
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