# restoring Outlook Emails from Formatted HDD



## kietsu1988 (Aug 4, 2010)

OK ill start by saying im vaguely aquainted with MOST tech terms and have been doing tech support for friends/family since i was 13, I never had a problem like this one.

My fiance's dad wanted me to Install Windows 7 on his laptop, he asked if his email accounts would still be there when it reinstalled, I told him no, you would have set them up on once outlook was finished installing. He said ok can you show me it WILL work. So i put MY email account on HIS computer, and it worked FINE. 

This all went well until about a week ago, He told me his email account WILL NOT show ANY emails. I asked him a few questions and tried see If it would work for me, At last no success, So i inqured about the account STILL being active as it was from one of his older jobs, Turns out it wasnt, SO NOW,
ALL of the emails are gone, The harddrive has been reformated, and windows 7 installed, Ive used data recovery software to get the pst files back, however they are all empty. 

And easy, preferably FREE method of retrieving such files would be great. 
Any info and im EXTREMELY greatful. . . 
thanks in advance

chadd


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## RSpecianjr (Jan 20, 2010)

Hey kietsu1988,

I suppose you dont have a backup disc anywhere? 

You are going to need to retreive an intact .pst file. Unfortunately, this will mean using some sort of recovery program. An "unformat" program. There are some free ones out there, but I would be weary of them. Since you have already installed a new operating system on it, it will be a little more difficult. You can try something like:

http://www.recovermyfiles.com/unformat.php

Did you do a fresh install of windows 7 or did you do an upgrade?

HTH,

Robert D. Specian Jr.


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## kietsu1988 (Aug 4, 2010)

I always do Fresh Installs, Ive seen to many issues with "upgrades" to bother trying it ot. 

as far as the program you have directed me to, Im not TOO sure if an Unformat would be a smart idea, As if it fails i would have to REFORMAT, again, to install a working operating system, thus losing any chance at recovering the data, Or damaging it even farther.

With the current situation i can only do repairs to the laptop VIA the laptop, While my computer sits here idle waiting for attention. HE has asked me not to remove the HDD in fear of "breaking it" as I will be marrying his step daughter i just want to get this problem out of the way and move on


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## RSpecianjr (Jan 20, 2010)

Hey kietsu1988,

Your a brave soul for doing any kind of work on a future father-in-laws computer haha.

Unfortunately, I am not sure of any other way to recover the .pst file without unformatting... I never was big into data-recovery... Failing hard-drives are also much easier to get into...

If you find another way, or if someone else has a recommendation please post it, I am interested in hearing alternatives! If all else fails, you can always attempt the unformat...

HTH,

Robert D. Specian Jr.


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## djaburg (May 15, 2008)

There are VERY few options for recovering files from a formatted partition and it totally depends on if the data area that the original data was overwritten or not. If it was, you have no chance of getting it back. If it were me I'd ghost the HD to make sure I had a "good" backup of the data that is currently on it. Your ONLY option short of taking it to a data recovery specialist is to use a utility to "unformat" the drive and see what it can recover. I would say that in my experience it's not likely that you'd get the data back, but you need to explain to your future father in law what the issue is and what his options are.


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## kietsu1988 (Aug 4, 2010)

I explained as much as possible without Confusing him. Luckily for him and use of an external drive, I installed Power Data Recovery, and located all the .pst files, And used PSTSCAN.exe from outlook to repair them to a useable state, After which i mearly imported them into outlook. It took quite a while, and a lot of effort to sit there fixing all 400+ files. But I've finally found the emails. Thanks to all who Helped, and gave to advice. No more doing pc work for people without some sorta waiver. . . Too risky. . . too annoying. .


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## RSpecianjr (Jan 20, 2010)

Hey kietsu1988,

Thanks for sharing! Also happy to know a problem gets solved and hear the solution!

Regards,

Robert D. Specian Jr.


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## Cloudcjs (Jun 18, 2010)

There is no way to unformat disk, and mostly recovery software can restore files from the formatted disk.

In this case, when windows reinstalled, disk got reformatted... email files might have been overwritten that's why you got empty email in the restored files.

resources:
http://www.icare-recovery.com/howto/restore-outlook-express-emails.html


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## kietsu1988 (Aug 4, 2010)

If you read my previous post the files were recovered, fixed, and reloaded into outlook.

I understand you cannot Un format a disk, HOWEVER, you can usually recover files so long as they are not overwritten. Since it was a fresh install, windows typically installs to the same area of the disk with each install from my experience. the lost files were not damaged, and were fairly easy to recover after the method was discovered.


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## Jimmy Rapid (Dec 5, 2010)

I had the exact same problem. It happened with a failed WinXP "Files & Settings Transfer Wizard" operation.

I used GetDataBack on the formatted and new OS-installed HD and it found about 4 .pst files. Different versions of the same data, if I remember correctly. GetDataBack brought back the .pst files and then it was a matter of importing them back into Outlook Express. I know you have Outlook, but that was my situation. If I remember right, the data was corrupted on all three .pst files, so even if you go the whole course you still wind up with a big pile of poo. Also, of the 4, only 1 of the recovered .pst files was the most recent, so there's some trial-and-error in importing the recovered file into Outlook until you find the right 

BTW, they share part of the same name, and they are both from MS, but from what I have read Outlook and Outlook Express are completely different softwares. Outlook Express is NOT "Outlook Lite" or anything like that, in case you start thinking there might be some parallels.

Another idea is to simply re-download all the e-mails from the Server, unless the POP configuration settings were setup to delete the e-mails off the server after they were downloaded, or they were deleted from the Server when they were deleted from OE. If neither of these happened, you could simply change the POP settings so that it downloads ALL the e-mails from the account all over again.

I use Gmail exclusively, and it has a setting that you select so that it "clears" the record of what has already been saved to the computer, and so it does all the e-mails all over again. Hundreds and hundreds of e-mails. But at least they are all there. I assume hotmail, msn, etc... all have similar options.


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