Outlook pst files corrupted - not recognized by Outlook

I've had a similar problem to Jeff S on two occasions recently with ATI 2011. On both occasions a full backip of drive 'C' onto an external USB drive failed because the disk was full. The ATI log states the backup was aborted by the user though I suspect that at some time after the backup had stalled the PC was simply shut down. No damage to my system was done other than when I ran Outlook 2007 (SP2), (which I run alongside Word, Excel, etc. in Outloook 14 Student), Outlook would not open and complained that my .pst file could not be opened.

First time round no normal 'trick' would make Outlook run and it it took the use of the Outlook repair tool 'scanpst.exe' an hour to successfully repair the .pst file. Most annoyingly I now have to live with something called 'Reparied file 8082' in Outlook that acts like my Inbox. When yesterday the same external disk again crashed ATI because it had filled up, Outlook again failed to open after ATI 2011 had failed, but after several attempts to open it Outlook advised that my .pst file had not been closed properly - and then fixed it.

This is very unsatisfactory. I cannot risk 15 years of e-mail every time I run ATI.

Can anyone provede a solution. I believe I set ATI to delete all old backup each time it runs - but it appears not to do so.

This might helpy you with the backup retention.
17815: Acronis True Image Home 2011: Consolidation
http://kb.acronis.com/content/17815
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If my emails were that important, I would use multiple methods/programs of having backups of my emails. I would not rely on any single backup program--no matter whom. Some ISP will also allow you to retain copies on their server.

Graham: Thanks for the post. I am backing to a half-full 1.5tb drive - tons of room on it; so I do not believe my problem is related to disk space. Tried scanpst.exe and it said that the file was not an outlook file.

GroverH: I agree that critical files require redundancy. which is why I have two sets of backups, as I indicated in my original post. But only ATI has been relied upon for versioning. The trouble is, a block of emails 2 weeks old was inadvertantly deleted. That is why the current backup was not enough. Will check the KB article; thanks.

Tried the KB article recomended by GroverH. No help for my problem. Anyone know whether the problem is that the archive is truly corupted beyond repair or whether the problem is on the recover/restore side?

Jeff, other users have reported the email backup doesn't backup outlook.pst if that file has been moved away from the default folder. A way to work around this issue could be to do a file backup including that PST file in addition to the email backup.

Jeff, I use multiple BU methods for my 2010 PST file. I mainly rely on SyncBack Pro (it will BU an open PST file) using the daily setting for the target. The daily setting will create a folder for each day of the week. If you are using Outlook 2007 your PST file is located at C:\Users\YourUserID\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook (if you did not change it) and by default 2010 stores it in the Documents folder. Because I sync the Documents folder (using SyncBack Pro) across all of my system I changed the location of my 2010 PST file back to the location used by Outlook 2007. I have used a backed up PST file for recovery. NOTE this method does leave you exposed to loosing anything you have received after the last BU. The only way I can think of to reduce this exposure is to (1) use a mirror for your C drive (2) use Acronis continuous BU - I've never used this option thus I can only guess that it would work. I have used mirror drives and they do work. In Win7 you can very easily setup a software RAID 1 (mirror). On my previous desktop I had five software RAID 1 arrays and they work great! Currently my new desktop does not have any RAID 1 arrays but it will as soon as I resolve other issues. I do currently have a RAID 6 (6-2TB drives) in the new system.

BTW - mirror arrays don't always solve the problem for you either. Example you screw up a file and the magic of mirror drives means that the file on the mirror is now screwed up as well.

One of the backup methods I practice for my emails is to leave copies on the past two weeks on my SP host server. Often times, I switch disks (quick swap) as I have TI 2010 and TI 2011 installed on different disks. Having the files on the servero means I can swithch disks and always have the most current emails downloaded to either disk just by accessing my email.

That sounds like a good system. My email situation is more complicated by reason of having 2 accounts, only one of which puts emails on my own server. The other is on the web and downloads to a pst on my laptop - one of which is the damaged file that I am struggling with now. But your concept makes sense. Thanks.

Any ideas on how I might reccover the files that are properly in the TI backup but copy out as damaged?

JGT,

I will checkout Syncback Pro. It sounds like it could be a solution if properly implemented. The thing that burns me up is that my system was fine by design: a daily backup to one drive not connected to my actual working computer, and a daily incremental backup of the primary backup drive. Other files in those incremental backups seem fine: jpgs, pdfs, doc, etc. But the PST's seemed to be there, in tact and reporting the correct file length. When you try to restore them they come out only about 2/3 the size of the originals and are not recognized by Outlook or SCANPST.EXE. I have since gone to the latest build of Home 2010 and tried some test backups. They seem to work alright. What I do not know is whether, with incremental backups, even a fluky failure in one of the increments corrupts everything that follows, or whether the earlier build was buggy. If that is the case, then my future backups will be alright. Only time will tell. My big question remains: can anyone tell me how to get these backed up files to recover properly?

Jeff

Jeff - you can use TI (I'm using 2011 but 2010 will do the same) to open the TIB file. In 2011 do the following
- Open TI to the Home screen
- Under "Recover last version" click on "Explore all version"
- Now click on the "Files and folders" tab
- Double-click on "My computer" (it seems to work better if you click on the "My computer" in the in the section on the right.
- Double-click on the "C" drive - this will give you a windows explorer view of your C drive in the TIB file. Drill down to the desired location
- When you find the file you want, right-click on it and select Recover - you can recover to the original or new location (I'd suggest a new location or close Outlook rename your current PST file and then recover to the original location).

I've done the above in the past (I really screwed things up and when through recovery hell -very long sad and boring story) and it worked like a charm - I was super happy!!!!

I've been lucky with SCANPST.EXE and it has save me a few times.

Don't beat yourself up regarding backups. I've gone through recovery hell several times and each time I discover something new that I should do. Just this weekend I had to recover my main laptop only to discover that my TI backups had been failing and I did not notice. The failure started with day-one of the recent build. My main drive had a bad sector (this drive was only 4 months old and had gone through all of my normal HD test (Hard Disk Sentinel (HDS) and SpinRite). I ran HDS in non-destructive mode and SpinRite at level 4, I was then able to use TI to create a TIB and then use the TIB to recover to a new (fully tested) HD. Lots of should-have, could-have lessons.

I'm of the opinion that we as users don't see a lot of the HD issues (the OS and the microcode on the drives hide a LOT from us and try to protect us) but we do see the ill effects of them. Thus we have to determine how important our data (e.g. everything on the HD) and then implement various BU schemes. To a large extent it comes down to money. Currently I estimate that my backup scheme has cost me about $2K and I;d rate it a 5 on a scale of 10. I cannot afford to move up to a level 10. Most users are not even at level 1.

I've been checking my TI runs on all of my systems to ensure they are running. (hard lesson learned)
I've actually run TI recovery to test drives (just to ensure I can do it, you don't want to learn how during a crisis)
I have a RAID 6 (currently 7.5TB) for all of my "data", two drives can fail before the RAID fails (if a third drive fails the RAID fails) but as soon as a drive fails, I remove it, install a new (fully tested) drive, the RAID accepts the drive and the RAID array is again happy (and so am I).
I back up to various other drives (mainly eSATA) my Outlook, Documents and other Library folders
I use TI and SyncBack Pro as my main backup applications
I also use Beyond Compare 3 as another confirmation and copy application
I use Hard Disk Sentinel Pro to monitor the health of ALL of my drives (I currently have about 25 drives in production and another 25-30 just setting on the shelf - most with something on them)

JGT1942,

Thanks for the reply. You are way ahead of me in backup strategies. But you have given me some good ideas.

So far as recovering these pst files is concerned, I have several times gone through the process you describe. It restores a file about 1/3 smaller than the archive said it was, and corrupted. I have both TI 2010 and 2011. I reverted to 2010 because I despised the interface in 2011. Do you think the recovery engine is any different? If so, it might be worth reloading it just to try.

Thanks,

Jeff

Jeff,

Is your backup a mix of 2011 and 2010 versions? In this case, only 2011 can restore (if the backup integrity has been preserved).

Jeff - I understand the dislike of the 2011 interface, I don't really like it either but to my knowledge 2011 is better than 2010. Thus I'm not sure if the 2010 or 2011 engine is better but as Pat stated you CANNOT use 2010 with a 2011 file.

With my recent recovery (Win7 x64, Office 2010 x32) on my Lenovo W700 I had to perform the recovery a bit backwards. Following is what I did.
1) First I used Hard Disk Sentential Pro to "Reinitialize disk surface", this destroyed ALL of the data on the drive and forced the drive to mark bad sectors unusable. This took about 20 hours on my 500GB drive.
2) I then used SpinRite at level 4 to test the drive and force the drive to mark any additional bad sectors unusable. Another 20 hours, so far I've not started the TI recovery.
3) I made sure I had the latest TI build (I did)
4) I made a bootable TI recovery CD
5) I installed the tested empty drive in my W700, my TI TIB file was on an eSATA drive connected to the dock which myW700 is setting in,
6) Using the recovery CD I booted my system, found my TIB file on the eSATA, kicked off the TI recovery. This took about 2 1/2 hours to run, I'm using about 300 GB of my 500 GB drive.
7) After it ran I powered off my W700, powered on and booted with the new recovery and ran a quick test. Everything seemed to be OK
8) Just because I was a bit hyper I reran the recovery using a third (tested) 500 GB drive. Again I booted using the new recovery and all looked OK. I then opened Outlook, no problems so I downloaded new emails (well over 500 new, mostly junk). I've now been running two days and no problems that I'm aware of.

At this time you are sorta up the creek without a paddle. Try to recover using a recovery CD from 2011 as I did. Hopefully this will work for you. Before you do the recovery (to a new drive) download a trial copy of Hard Disk Sentential and run the "Reinitialize disk surface" test first. Remember this will totally destroy anything on the drive but it is a super test! You might try HDS on the old drive using the "Read + Write + read test", this "might" destroy some of the drive if it encounters a weird issue. To run this test HDS needs to control the disk, I removed the drive from my laptop and installed as a second drive in a test system (I used this system only for drive testing), boot into SAFE MODE, start HDS, select the desired drive and run the desired test. If you don't have a second system try placing the drive in an external enclosure, boot to SAFE MODE and test. I use internal or eSATA connections when possible just because they are faster (MUCH) than USB2. My new desktop supports USB3 but I don't have any USB3 enclosures.

I don't think you can download a trial of SpinRite.

Good luck - let us know how you make out.

I had a couple of 2011 backups, but the ones I am working with now are all 2010. Any reason to think that 2011 will restore a 2010 backup better than 2010 will?

Thanks.

Fortunately, I do not need to recover a disk. My computer is fine. I have 2 backup drives, each new 1.5tb drives. The first drive just gets a copy of the files off my working computer in native NTFS format. ATI then does a file by file incremental backup. As indicated, the archives do not act corrupted in general and every file type I have tried is fine except PST files. For these reasons, I am not sure how going through a thorough cleaning and reinitializing of the drive would be indicated. Am I misunderstanding you?

Thanks for the help.

@Jeff S, no 2011 doesn't restore better 2010 images than 2010.

I did not think so, which is why I have not loaded 2011 again and tried it. I guess this data is just gone and we see, once again, that backup and restore with any program, at any time under any conditions, is a chancy proposition.

Jeff,

Right. You know, if you have a full image (disk and partition) backup, you are pretty much covered with the case of the PST files, as you can recover particular files from the recovery CD, or from explorer directly.
I personally never found much value in backing up the Outlook Settings (accounts, etc.), but this is only me. So I never used dedicated email backups.
You can couple a disk image with a file backup from ATI or from something else to backup up these big PST files.
I use Genie Timeline, because it has block level backup for PST files (alongside with Oulook Settings). This avoids the problem of filling up the back up space with copies of PST files. Alternatively, you can simply replicate the file (with Syncback or other). It is my understanding the non-stop backup feature of ATI can do block level changes backups as well rather that the entire file, I didn't try in the specific case of PST files.