Reasons of MS Outlook PST Corruption:

There are various application and system factors, which may damage the PST file and make it unusable. Some of the most frequent and common causes of MS Outlook PST corruption are as given below:

·     Virus Infection- Viruses are malicious programs, which infect and corrupt your PST file and make it inaccessible. Viruses may enter your system by several means, including Internet, virus infected attachment, and connecting virus infected removable media. You should always  use an updated and advanced anti-virus application to regularly scan your PST file.

·     Oversized PST File- In Microsoft Outlook 2002 and earlier versions, you cannot have a PST file more than 2 GB in size. If it exceeds the 2 GB size limit, it gets damaged and you can not access data from it.

·     Improper Termination of Outlook Application- You should close the Outlook application gracefully after saving all the changes you made to PST file and clicking ‘Exit’ menu item. But, if Outlook shuts down improperly while your PST file is in use, there are strong chances of PST file corruption. Improper termination can be due to operating system crash, power outages, and using ‘End Task’ option from Windows Task Manager.

·     MS Outlook Application Deficiencies- Every application has deficiencies, therefore does MS Outlook. Some of these deficiencies come from short sights of developers. Generally they are expected to be fixed, but can not be fixed simply using patches or fixes.

In order to fix PST file corruption and perform Microsoft Outlook recovery, Outlook has an inbuilt tool, called Inbox Repair Tool. However, this tool has a limitation that it cannot fix PST file corruption, caused by external reasons, like virus infection and improper termination of Outlook application. In such cases, need of Outlook recovery software arises.

The applications are incorporated with powerful and advanced scanning methods to throughly scan entire PST file and extract all inaccessible data from it. The Outlook recovery utilities are totally safe and easy to use.

Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair is the best PST repair software ever made, which works in all PST corruption scenarios. The software is designed particularly for Microsoft Outlook 2007, 2003, 2002, and 2000. It is capable of restoring all PST file objects, including emails, notes, contacts, tasks, journal, and calendar entries.

Consider a scenario wherein you are using Outlook 2003 in your system. When you start Outlook, there are some emails that are to be downloaded. When the emails are downloaded, an error message is displayed, that is:

“File path\filename.pst could not be accessed. Data error. Cyclic redundancy check.” OR Data error (cyclic redundancy check)

In addition, you are not able to view some of the downloaded messages. Also, when you click the Deleted Items folder to view the deleted emails, the following error message is displayed:

“Error 0×80040116”

Cause:

The root cause of this problematic situation is that the PST file that you are using has corrupted.

Resolution:

The resolution to this erroneous situation involves two phases. They are:

· Running chkdsk to find errors on hard disk: You should run chkdsk /f from the command prompt. Then, start Outlook and check if the problem is still there. If the problem persists, then use the next method.

· Recreating the PST file: You should recreate Outlook.pst (its default name) file by using Inbox Repair (Scanpst.exe) tool. This tool repairs the index headers of the PST file.

Outlook will work fine after performing the aforementioned methods. However, in case you are still getting the same error message it means that the PST file has corrupted to a greater extent. For such cases, you should use a third-party MS Outlook recovery software to do the needful. Such Outlook recovery tools are read-only in nature and recover Outlook components using fast yet sophisticated scanning algorithms.

Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair is an MS Outlook recovery software that is able to recover Outlook components from any logical corruption. It restores various Outlook objects such as emails, calendar items, tasks, journals, contacts, etc. In addition, this Microsoft Outlook recovery utility preserves the formatting of RTF and HTML emails. This Outlook recovery software is designed to repair PST files created in Outlook 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002, and 2000. It is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000.

Microsoft Outlook Recovery – Microsoft Office Outlook uses Personal folder (also called .pst file) to store local copies of email messages, notes, journals, tasks and appointments. When Outlook searches for the file, it looks for its index information to make search results better and instant. However, if PST index is damaged that will make your PST file inaccessible. You will receive some errors that PST cannot be accessed and thus needs to be repaired. If running Inbox Repair Tool doesn’t help in such situations, you will require using PST Repair tools as the effective file repair applications Microsoft Office Outlook uses Personal folder (also called .pst file) to store local copies of email messages, notes, journals, tasks and appointments. When Outlook searches for the file, it looks for its index information to make search results better and instant. However, if PST index is damaged that will make your PST file inaccessible. You will receive some errors that PST cannot be accessed and thus needs to be repaired. If running Inbox Repair Tool doesn’t help in such situations, you will require using PST Repair tools as the effective file repair applications.As an instance, when you try to start Microsoft Office Outlook or open a personal folder (.pst file), you might receive the below error message displaying on screen:

“Outlook.pst can not be accessed – 0×80040116.”

Where, ‘Outlook.pst’ denotes the name of your PST file. As additional symptoms, you might find that when you run Inbox Repair Tool (also known as Scanpst.exe), it doesn’t help and report any errors with the file.

Cause

The possible reason for error 0×80040116 to occur is damage of PST file index. In such situations, MS Outlook cannot access the file.

Solution

As discussed, running Inbox Repair Tool doesn’t cure this problem. So, to overcome such issues, you first need to run 2 GB Truncation Tool and then run Inbox Repair Tool.

1- 2 GB Truncation Tool or Oversized PST and OST Crop Tool is used to create truncated copy of PST file. This tool cuts down the overall PST file size by deleting items of specified size.

To resolve the above issues, you should follow these steps in order:

. Use 2 GB Truncation Tool for your PST file:

1- Download the 2 GB Truncation Tool
2- Create an empty folder and extract 2gb152.exe file from the downloaded tool to it.
3- Click Start->Search->For File and Folders
4- Click Folder Options on Tools menu and switch to View tab
5- In View tab, click Show hidden files and folders and then click and clear Hide extensions for known file types and Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) check boxes. Confirm to the settings. It will allow the hidden PST file to display.
6- Click All files and folders under What do you want to search for? drop-down list
7- Type *.pst in All or part of the file name box and look for the file in your primary drive, usually C:. Click Search
8- You should then note down the PST file path
9- Next, run path\pst2gb.exe -s, where path denotes the path to Pst2gb.exe tool. Click Continue and browse the PST file.
10- Open the PST file
11- Create a new file with different name as of original PST
12- Click Start in Oversized PST Recovery Tool dialog box. After the process is complete, click OK and then Close

• Run Scanpst.exe

1- Click Start->Search and then click All files and folders under What do you want to search for? drop-down list
2- Type scanpst.exe in All or part of the file name box and look for the file in your primary drive, usually C:. Click Search
3- Double-click and open the scanpst.exe file in the list of found files
4- Next, you need to click Browse to locate the new file created using 2 GB Truncation tool
5- Click and open this new .pst file
6- Click Start in Inbox Repair Tool dialog box. This will start the file scanning process.
7- Click Repair after the scanning is complete. This will repair the damaged PST file. Click OK after you receive a particular process complete message on screen.

You should then restart your computer system and open the repaired PST file in Outlook. If the file is free from errors, you need to copy all the information from each of Recovered Personal Folders and paste them to ‘Outlook Today-(Personal Folders)’.

If you still cannot access your PST file because it is corrupted, it is required to use commercial PST Recovery utilities. These are powerful PST Repair applications built with advanced technology to scan and repair a damaged PST file in any set of circumstances. Such PST Recovery software provide you rich set of features, ease of use, graphically rich interface and more.

Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair is the world’s known product to repair and restore corrupted Outlook PST file. The software supports safe PST Repair for Outlook 2007, 2003, 2002 and 2000. It recovers all email items and other Outlook items, such as journals, notes, tasks, appointments etc. This non-destructive PST Recovery application is compatible with Windows Vista, XP, 2003, 2000 and NT. The software is also competent to recover lost PST password and split a PST file.