I use Office XP and my Outlook pst file has just disappeared. I used Outlook friday night and for the last few months without any problems, then saturday morning when I turned on the pc and tried to start Outlook I received the following error message:

Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. unable to display the selected folder or item. The file F:\Documents and Settings\Tony Winyard\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst is not a personal folders file.

The Outlook.pst file was pretty big and contained a lot of emails, contacts, calendar entries etc, but windows explorer now says the file is 0kb?!
It can't have just disappeared and surely must be still on the pc somewhere?
I tried using windows xp system restore and restored from friday night but it made no difference

I did a *.pst search and that only found a couple of archive.pst files one was 160kb and the other 640kb. The search found the Outlook.pst file which was 0kb. The search did include hidden files and all drives.
I have no idea of how large exactly the file was although I'm pretty sure it was not over 1.6gb as I ran into problems last year when the file got too big and so since then I've deleted large attachments etc to try to keep it as small as possible. I'd take a guess that it was around 1.2gb.

I would very much appreciate any help and advice anyone is able to offer as I have a lot of precious work in that file.

Are you sure your .pst file was getting as big as 1.2GB that’s very (very) big.
Copy and rename the newest old .pst file (hope that made sense) and you'll have to go from there. But in future it might be an idea to back up your outlook using the export feature as computers are the weirdest things...

Hey

The PST file can become very big, my backup one is currently at 1.6gb in size! This is due to the file holding ALL E-mails, contacts, calender entries etc used inside outlook including attachments!

Theres not much you can do if you didnt back the PST file up apart from using one of those archived ones and working on from there Sorry! However, DO NOT delete the current PST, rename it. You never know the file might just need some time, al la when scandisk checks it!


Regards
Mike

If you have a lot of e-mails coming in then it's a good idea to split them up into different .pst files.

That way at least all your eggs aren't in one basket!

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And I bet you thought I'd turned this off topic?

A good method of email is using hushmail, it is online, it has a free as well as subscription, it is very very secure, no junk mail or unsolicited mail, can be integrated into Outlook, but overall, if your email software messes up, at least you have a hard copy online.

Tone, is your firewall and AV up to date???

Outlook is one of the favourites for hackers as it has more holes than a swiss cheese.

Take a look at me !

This is a great program !

But Chris, you can't look at the WH Smith's diary from my PDA !, or either laptop, or the three desktops, or my mobile, or any other computer connected to the internet.



Do you think I am too gadget orientated ?

well YOU are only in one place at any one time, so live a little and splash out on....... a Diary AND something to carry it in!!.

I have splashed out, I have diary and I carry it on my PDA, this way I always have it on hand, it doesn't weight any extra, and I only type everything once and sync it up to the other machines so wherever I am I have ALL my e.mails/contacts/dates etc.