Fixing Problems With Outlook And PST/OST Files
The Microsoft Outlook program is an incredibly useful tool that can enable you to easily keep track of emails and contacts.
Its organizing properties have made it a top choice email software utility amongst businesses.
However, Outlook does have one weakness: it stores all of your information in a PST file.
PST stands for Personal Storage Table, and is basically a database where all of your email, contacts, calendar and journal entries and more are stored.
There are several reasons that you can end up having problems with your PST or OST file.
Sometimes you can pinpoint the cause, and sometimes you can't; it just depends on the situation.
When looking to fix a PST file you must first start with what might have happened to the file.
Sometimes PSTs can get too big; obviously the longer you use Outlook the greater the chances for this to happen.
In 32 bit versions of Windows there is a 2 GB file limit, and if your PST grows beyond this it can really muck things up.
In this case you can use a file trim tool provided by Microsoft called "pst2gb.
" However, you will lose some of your data since this program will snip off a user defined amount of data from the file.
Another cause of some of these issues is corruption due to viruses or malware.
Corruption can also sometimes be caused by incomplete shutdowns or power failures.
Other time the cause of the corruption will never be determined.
However, you can fix your corrupt PST files in a couple different ways.
The scanpst.
exe program included with most versions of Outlook is a way to repair the file, however using this tool is not very intuitive, and some people will get lost.
Still others risk doing more damage if they don't know what they are doing.
If you'd like to try this method you should do a quick search for "Scanpst.
exe" so you can find more in-depth directions on how to proceed.
For folks who just want a solution and aren't into rooting around for a computer spell manual then I definitely suggest looking into getting a software tool to help you repair the PST file painlessly.
There are several of these programs available online, and you can find more information about them on our website.
Remember to always back up your files; your PST file is no exception.
Its organizing properties have made it a top choice email software utility amongst businesses.
However, Outlook does have one weakness: it stores all of your information in a PST file.
PST stands for Personal Storage Table, and is basically a database where all of your email, contacts, calendar and journal entries and more are stored.
There are several reasons that you can end up having problems with your PST or OST file.
Sometimes you can pinpoint the cause, and sometimes you can't; it just depends on the situation.
When looking to fix a PST file you must first start with what might have happened to the file.
Sometimes PSTs can get too big; obviously the longer you use Outlook the greater the chances for this to happen.
In 32 bit versions of Windows there is a 2 GB file limit, and if your PST grows beyond this it can really muck things up.
In this case you can use a file trim tool provided by Microsoft called "pst2gb.
" However, you will lose some of your data since this program will snip off a user defined amount of data from the file.
Another cause of some of these issues is corruption due to viruses or malware.
Corruption can also sometimes be caused by incomplete shutdowns or power failures.
Other time the cause of the corruption will never be determined.
However, you can fix your corrupt PST files in a couple different ways.
The scanpst.
exe program included with most versions of Outlook is a way to repair the file, however using this tool is not very intuitive, and some people will get lost.
Still others risk doing more damage if they don't know what they are doing.
If you'd like to try this method you should do a quick search for "Scanpst.
exe" so you can find more in-depth directions on how to proceed.
For folks who just want a solution and aren't into rooting around for a computer spell manual then I definitely suggest looking into getting a software tool to help you repair the PST file painlessly.
There are several of these programs available online, and you can find more information about them on our website.
Remember to always back up your files; your PST file is no exception.
Source...