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crainger
10-21-07, 05:07 PM
OK. Here is the story. One of the guys at head office somehow had been using a machine with Outlook 2000 on it, and as we all know Outlook 2000 and XP had issues when a PST file went over 2GB. This machine didn't even have the service pack that stopped the corruption happening. So now I have a 2gb PST that is unreadable.

So far I have tried repairing the file with just ScanPST, then I tried 2GBPST followed by a ScanPST. This seemed to get the file readable, but now it's asking for a password. So I tried the old PST to PSX to PST method to remove the password, but the utility terminates early, I'm guessing due to the files immense size. Also the user claims there was no password, and all the design docs say the PST itself should NOT be pass worded, although the previous guy who looked at the system has left the company and can't be reached.

So has anyone ever come across this before? My next plan of attack is to try and read the file in Outlook 2003, both before 2GB/ScanPST and after. I've also found a truckload of tools, but most are so expensive and not guaranteed to work either. :( So any ideas people can throw around? Thanks guys in advance. :)

BTW This exact same thing happened last year and my predecessor simply created a new PST and had them start from scratch. Maybe that is what I'll have to do, but more importantly he should have diagnosed the problem as Outlook 2000 and had someone come upgrade the PC as the rest of ours all run 2003! :rant:

evilghost
10-21-07, 05:20 PM
BOOM. I can help you on this one because as a previous Exchange admin I ran into this crap all the time.

The answer is the PST must be a unicode PST to support more than 2G. A PST over the 2G limit must first be truncated to 2G before any of the content will be available. Next time you create a PST make it unicode.

I used to use ExMerge to extract data from a corrupt PST.

See if this helps, you may be able to convert the ANSI PST to unicode if you still have the original corrupt PST. The 'password' issue is likely a result of compressible encryption being enabled on the PST.

http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ansi-to-unicode.asp

evilghost
10-21-07, 05:25 PM
I may be able to help you with readpst too, converting it to mbox -> maildir and letting you POP it down from my mailserver. It's a lot of work on my end but it may be worth the effort if you can't get it going.

crainger
10-21-07, 05:30 PM
Awesome thanks dude. Yeah compressible encryption was enabled. I do have the original corrupt PST here so I will try this as soon as I can and see how I go.