Efficient Methods to Fix Outlook PST Corruption

Microsoft Outlook is a reliable email client, but something weird things happen with this application.  Sometimes it happens that you receive errors on Outlook, when you try to initiate your Outlook mailbox. You come across many type of errors message but one which is very common is mentioned under:

"Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window?"

This was something, user was not expecting as when last time user closed the application, everything was fine, but today user can neither start Outlook mailbox nor can open Outlook profile configured on that system. This means user is facing complete inaccessibility of precious emails.

Generally, this satiation occurs when your Outlook PST file gets corrupt. Below mentioned are possible reasons that are responsible for Outlook PST file corruption:

1. Abnormal termination of Outlook
2. Virus infection or other malicious software
3. Bad sectors on hard drive of your computer that cause partial inaccessibility of Outlook data as your PST file is saved on the bad sector
4. Power failure during PST access also corrupts the PST file
5. Over-sized PST file

However, this time you must be more concerned about ways to fix this unexpected issue and get back your precious emails and other Outlook data instead of the causes responsible for the problem. Let us discuss some very reliable methods by which, you can overcome the problem:

Method 1: Outlook Inbox Repair Tool or ScanPST.exe:  

Outlook provides an inbuilt utility named as Inbox Repair tool to rectify all the issues related to header corruption of your PST file. 

Location of this utility depends on MS Outlook version, given below:

• MS Outlook 2016: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\office16\
• Outlook 2013: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15
• Outlook 2010: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14
• Outlook 2007: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\

However, if you cannot find Inbox Repair tool at this location, then click 'Start' and do Windows search for scanpst.exe (executable file of this tool) file in your system. After that click Browse and select the corrupt PST file. 

Outlook PST file is usually situated at:

 C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

After selecting the file click 'Start'. Go ahead and press 'Repair' button to start repairing of PST file. Hopefully this method will work for you and repair your PST file.

Method 2: 

Professional PST Repair Software: If per chance the above mentioned inbuilt tool of Outlook fails to do the needful, then using efficient PST repair software is recommended. A professional tool repairs PST file from all kinds of PST corruptions and recovers your valuable data.

In this way by any of the aforementioned methods you can overcome the above issue and get back the accessibility of your Outlook.

Reference:

http://ccm.net/faq/5583-how-to-recover-deleted-outlook-pst-files