[Welsh William]

Hi everyone,

I have used the site many times over the years to solve my problems but now I have one that I need serious help with.

A lttle while ago I had a bad virus attack that was proving particularly difficult to remove. After days of scans trying different programmes without luck my friend said it would be quicker to format and re-install everything so this is what we did. We backed up all the documents and pictures HOWEVER by this time my brain was pretty foggy and I forgot about all the emails that I had in outlook. I formatted not only important business contacts and emails but also priceless family stuff too!!

I realised my stupidity when reinstalling windows so before I installed all of my other software I desperately looked into data recovery software. Using 'O&O Disc Recovery' I managed to recover a .PST file just under 1.5gb and also 4X .DBX files totalling 218mb.

I have reinstalled Outlook but now what do I do? If I try to open the recovered PST file it opens O&O and if I try to open the DBX files it's asking for a programme to open with??

Can anyone please help me get my mail back?

Edited by Welsh William, 08 October 2009 - 02:00 AM.

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for the PST...open outlook and click on file then import/export then choose import from a file or program, then choose the PST option...then point it to the PST and it should import them...

for the DBX i think you would choose outlook express as the type

[dsenette]

for the PST...open outlook and click on file then import/export then choose import from a file or program, then choose the PST option...then point it to the PST and it should import them...

for the DBX i think you would choose outlook express as the type

[Welsh William]

Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it.

Unfortunately when I try to import the file Outlook gives me the message that it is "not a personal folders file" even though it is a .PST When I recovered it I only told O&O to look for .PST files so am confused. Will I need some special software to make sense of the recovered .PST before I can import it into Outlook? Perhaps it's all jumbled up or something?

[dsenette]

is the name of the PST file your name? or your profile's name or something? outlook also stores it's settings in a separate PST....and that may be what you've found

[Welsh William]

Hi DS,

Heres the scan log from the O&O programme:

Data Recovery Report – Created by O&O DiskRecovery V4.1.1334
© O&O Software GmbH. Web: http://www.oo-software.com/
Date/Time: 08 October 2009 14:12:06
Scanned Drive: Maxtor 6Y080L0 (76.34 GB)
File Found: 1
Total Size of Files Found: 1.54 GB (1654044672 Bytes)
Target Folder: F:\
Settings: 4 of 290 file types selected O&O DeepScan activated

Recovered Files:
PST\FILE0001.PST - 1.54 GB ( 1,654,044,672 Bytes)

Recovered File Types:
PST - 1 file - 1.54 GB ( 1,654,044,672 Bytes)

Files Saved: 1
Total Size of Files Saved: 1.54 GB (1654044672 Bytes)
Scan Duration: 02:30:23
Recovery Duration: 00:02:17
Comments: Data recovery was successful


Can you make any sense of this?

[dsenette]

http://office.micros...0563001033.aspx

try those steps to repair the recovered PST file

[Welsh William]

Hi DS,

I've been trying allsorts to repair the file as per instructions but it will just not let me. Firstly I cannot do as the instructions say because I don't get the Outlook error message outlining a path. Even so when I insert the correct drive and local ID info (English UK is 2057) it says cannot find file. When I browse the actual file and add on \scanpst.exe it says the location unavailable or the directory name is invalid.

I don't know what this PST file is that I have recovered? Perhaps the recovery software has found all traces of different PST files and lumped them altogether in an undecipherable mess?

[dsenette]

I don't know what this PST file is that I have recovered? Perhaps the recovery software has found all traces of different PST files and lumped them altogether in an undecipherable mess?

that's not likely

do a file search for scanpst on your computer and use the path that the file search reports as the location to issue the command

[Welsh William]

Hi Again,

Thanks for all the help. The search found the scanpst programme on my C: drive and I opened it. I browsed to the 'recovered' file on my F: drive but when I try to scan after a few seconds I get the message: "The inbox repair tool does not recognise the file F:\PST\file00001.pst. No information can be recovered."

Any further ideas?