How to Deal with Unresolved Errors in Damaged PST files
All Microsoft Outlook versions offer the same versatility and ease of use which makes Outlook one of the most widely used personal management applications. However, there are some issues that are unique for each version. Typically Outlook stores important data such as contacts, notes, email messages, appointments and other items in Personal Storage Files (PST files). Now, if you use the Outlook 2000 version, then you might have noticed that at times, when you are trying to backup your folders by using the Outlook.pst file or the Archive.pst file, then Outlook tends to hang. In other words, it gets completely locked up and you may be unable to use it any further.
To carry out a PST recovery, you might be told to use the ScanPST.exe tool that is in-built in Microsoft Outlook. Typically this tool is very effective in fixing minor errors in PST files and so long as the corruption levels are not very high, you should be able to restore almost all the data in the PST files. However, in this situation, when you run the ScanPST.exe tool, you may find to your surprise that the tool completes the scan successfully without showing any error messages or indicating that there may be any problem with the PST file. Obviously, you have to find some other means of carrying out a PST recovery.
More often than not, this problem arises when you have just finished recreating your Outlook profile. If you have indeed done so, you should have no problem in receiving or accessing new email messages or in creating new items. The problem crops up when you try to import your old PST file into your new profile. You may notice that when you try to import the old PST file into the new profile, you are either unable to access the older items or that Outlook simply stops responding. Usually, this happens when the old PST file is damaged, there are some damaged registry entries of Outlook or certain system files are missing.
If the problem is only due to missing system files or damaged registry entries, you could reinstall Outlook and then set up a new profile. This will help in restoring the registry entries as well as the missing system files. You can then import the PST file into the new profile and continue working with the old data.
