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Dealing with Oversized PST files to Avoid Corruption

Very often, when you face a problem with starting Microsoft Outlook or opening one of the folders, you use the repair utility that Outlook comes with ' the Inbox repair utility - and manage to successfully open your folders or start Outlook. However, sometimes, there are serious problems with the folder and you may receive an error message that reads as follows: 'Errors have been detected in the file '.. Quit all mail-enabled applications, and then use the Inbox Repair Tool. '  When you run the Inbox Repair Tool, you find that the problem still persists and that your personal folders are completely inaccessible. However, there is still one more Microsoft Outlook tool that may let you repair Outlook folders before you turn to other recovery tools.

You should first of all know that other than an actual damage to the PST file ' the file that stores all your important Outlook data ' there is one more thing that could cause serious problems when you are trying to work with Outlook. And that is the size of your PST file. For Outlook versions such as Microsoft Outlook 2002 and Outlook 2000, PST files have a size limitation of 2 GB. And when the PST file exceeds this limit, almost immediately Outlook faces problems in managing the file and you get the above-mentioned message. Further, it is not possible to repair Outlook folders using the Inbox Repair Tool if you are facing problems due to excessive size of PST files.

There is one more Microsoft Outlook tool that you could use to try and restore at least some data from the damaged PST file. This is called the PST crop tool and its function is exactly what its name suggests. It simply removes some data from the PST file and creates a truncated copy of the original PST file. Obviously the new copy does not have all the data contained in the original PST file because the crop tool cuts out an amount of data, specified by the user from the original file. Thus, the tool does not actually repair Outlook folder but makes it accessible by reducing it to a size below 2 GB.

There are some limitations nevertheless to this tool as well. You must have at least 2 GB of free space on your hard disk so that the tool can make a truncated copy of your original PST file. Secondly, you will be able to restore almost your entire original file, except a few messages. Therefore, even if the Inbox Repair tool does not succeed in repairing the file, you can try to recover as much data as you can from the PST file using the Crop tool.

On the other hand, if it is crucial for you to recover each and every email message and item stored in the PST file, you should use a more sophisticated recovery tool such as Advanced Outlook Repair from DataNumen. This software uses advanced technologies to scan damaged PST files and then restores the data, in the same structure as in the original file.