# A corrupted .pst file in Outlook 2007?



## Alphamonkey (Mar 6, 2007)

I start up my outlook and it will not read my .pst file, and i get an error like this:

I read on another forum to run the scanpst.exe. I run this and i get this error message at 9% in phase 1:


the log reads:


> Microsoft (R) Inbox Repair Tool
> Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp 1995-1996. All rights reserved.
> 
> **Beginning NDB recovery
> ...


the outlook.pst is 2,083,217 kb

any ideas of what i need to do to get it working again?


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## rbalaji (Dec 12, 2008)

It looks like your problem is being caused because the pst file has reached 2 GB (which is the size limit for pst files in office). I am not sure how to get past the problem, but you have to archive part of the file to a different pst if you are to continue using outlook without corruption of the pst in the future. Monitor the size of the pst file and try to keep it below 1 GB if possible.


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## Glaswegian (Sep 16, 2005)

I believe it was only versions prior to 2003 which had the 2GB limit - see here

http://www.officearticles.com/outlook/understanding_data_files_in_microsoft_outlook.htm


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## djaburg (May 15, 2008)

What I would do is check the hard drive for errors before you run scanpst. To do that, click START>COMPUTER, then right click on the C: drive, go to TOOLS, check for errors. That should resolve any errors that you might have on the drive, then try rerunning scanpst.


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## rbalaji (Dec 12, 2008)

Thanks for the link, Glaswegian. It looks like they have confused the issue further by making some pst files have the limit and others not. I think it is still a good idea to limit pst file size to under 2 GB because it is difficult to figure out whether it was created with outlook 2003 or was created earlier and imported into 2003 and then into 2007.


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## mattynufc (Jul 30, 2008)

Something which you could do (although is a little bit risky).

Change the first 8 bytes of the .PST file to 0's using a hex editor (use something like Winhex). Once you have done this save the file and then run scanpst.exe on the file. This should repair your PST file - it is also likely to recover deleted stuff from your PST file so don't be too confused by that!

Just to make sure that you don't completely mess up your PST file I would recommend to take a back up prior to the above.


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