Microsoft® Hidden Secret 

Almost nobody knows, but Microsoft®  Windows includes a non-documented, free-tool to recover Microsoft® Outlook email (and calendar / tasks / contacts) storage files: the Inbox Repair Tool. To use it to recover a damaged email file, you have to follow these steps it on your system:

1. Find the free Inbox Repair Tool on your system;
2. Locate the damaged Microsoft® Outlook file on your disk;
3. Use the Inbox Repair Tool to recover it;

NOTE: the screen-capture pictures on this tip were taken from Microsoft® Windows 2000. Microsoft® Windows XP is slightly different, but you should be able to do it without trouble.

STEP 1: Find the free Inbox Repair Tool on your system 

1) Use the file search tool on Microsoft® Windows Start Menu:

2) Search for a file called scanpst.exe:

3) Launch the recovery tool by clicking on its name on the search results list: 

STEP 2: Locate the damaged Microsoft® Outlook file on your disk;

Microsoft® Outlook  storage files have a file extension of .PST. But it doesn't show the file location, only it's contents. To find where the file is stored, do this:

1) Place the mouse over the Personal Folder heading on the Folder List. Use the right mouse button to get the context menu. Select Properties.

2) On the Properties dialog, press the Advanced button:

3) The name and location of the Outlook Archive file can be found on the Path field:

4) The archive file will be be found on the indicated location:

Note that the file appear on Windows as NOT being related to any application (no application Icon) and you can't open it by double clicking with the mouse.

WARNING: If the file is really damaged, Outlook may not allow you to do the steps above. In this case, just use the Windows File Search tool shown on STEP 1 to locate all email storage files and recover one by one: Search for files called *.pst

STEP 3: Use the Inbox Repair Tool to recover it

1) Use the Browse button to select the storage file you've just located:

2) Press Start and wait for the recovery process to end:

3)  The recovery process results will be shown, at the end, in a pop-up window: 

It says I have losses. What do I do? 

Not much. Accept them if you want to recover the remainder of the file. Usually, when recovering a damaged file, the contents of the damaged area will be lost, be it email messages, contacts, task or calendar items. 

The best (and probably only) way to protect against this is to regularly backup your Outlook storage files. If you want to know more about it, check this tutorial on How to Backup Outlook files.

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