Inbox Repair Tool (ScanPST.exe) : Complete Guide with Limitations, Error & Solution

Now a day’s communication through the mails is one the daily activity in every human life. Microsoft Outlooks plays a very vital role in managing mails and other personal information. It stores emails, calendars, contacts, tasks, notes, journal etc. in a PST file. It will be a nightmare if the PST file gets damaged or corrupted by any means.

Microsoft provides free Microsoft Outlook Inbox Repair Tool (scanpst.exe) software along with Microsoft Office to resolve such issues. This tool tries to correct the problem by resetting the data file structure and rebuilding the headers for outlook items. But in case of the severe corruption or infected with malicious virus, this utility completely fails to recover all the objects of the outlook. It means while repairing a PST file, if file’s data does not matches with the information in the header, ScanPST removes it. This will lead to permanent deletion of the data from actual file.

Some of the commonly known cases in which scanpst.exe fails are

1. While repairing, if you are getting message “The Microsoft Outlook Inbox Repair Tool does not recognize the file C:\users\Administrator\...\Outlook.pst.No information can be recovered”.
2. Internal errors were found in this file. They must be repaired for this file to work correctly.
3. The file outlook.pst is not a personal folders file.
4. If the size of PST file is less than 265 KB.
5. If the size of PST file is greater the 2 GB.
6. If the PST file is password protected.

In these cases, you need to use Outlook PST Repair Software. This highly advanced repairing utility scan your PST file and saves all the objects of the damaged outlook PST file into a new importable PST file. So there are no chances of data loss from your original PST File. In addition to this basic functionality, it also provides following features also

• Interactive preview of the outlook objects (Mails, Contacts, Calendars, Tasks and Journal) before saving them to a new PST file.
• Folder structure is maintained in the new saved PST file.
• Repairing of encrypted and password protected PST File
• Recovery of accidentally deleted emails.
• Repairing of PST file larger than 2 GB.
• Selective saving of mails as PST, MSG, EML, RTF, HTML and PDF.
• User can save the mails as PST, MSG, EML, RTF, HTML and PDF formats.
• User can manage mails as per date, from, to, subject, type, attachment, and importance after scanning process. This improves the tracking of particular mails in a more valuable manner.
• Software supports MS office 2013 / 2010 / 2007 / 2003 / 2002 (XP) / 2000.  

You can download and try the software from http://www.datacarelab.com/software-for-outlook-pst-file.php

Preventive measures to avoid PST File Corruption

• It is not advisable to save the PST file on the network drive. This can lead to data corruption due to the poor access to the PST file.
• Avoid installation of the add-ins which are not required. It might be possible that the installed add-ins are not supported by the Microsoft Office.
• Always keep an eye on the size of the PST file. If the size of the PST file is large, it is advisable to archive it or split the PST file.
• Always try to close the Outlook properly. Hard resetting of the system can lead to corruption in the PST File.