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Accessing Data from an Orphaned or Corrupt OST File

outlookOrganizations strive for a collaborative environment to make communication smoother. In most enterprises today, the Microsoft Exchange Server and Outlook work in collaboration to fulfill the purpose. Connectivity issues are common; hence, employees within an organization may be working offline owing to MS Outlook’s ability to allow users to work in offline mode or Cached Exchange Mode.

Working in offline mode creates a replica of the mailbox of Exchange Server on the local computer facilitating users to carry out tasks on the local machine. It is worth it to think over the concept behind this functionality. OST (Offline Storage Table) files do it all; they contain all Outlook data during MS Exchange downtime. When the Exchange comes into action, all the changes made are synchronized between the server and Outlook.

Unfortunately, the synchronization may face failure due to several causes, inclusive of viruses and other malware attacks, abnormal system shutdown, hard drive failure, improper exit from Outlook etc. Therefore, an unsuccessful or erroneous synchronization leads to inaccessibility of OST file. Furthermore, if a mailbox on the Exchange gets accidentally deleted or any modification takes place to Exchange profile, OST file becomes orphaned. As a result, user comes across data loss. One of the common errors that occur due to OST corruption is as follows:

Cannot open the default email folder, the file xxx is not an Offline folder file”

Where ‘xxx’ is the name of OST file.

The error results in preventing user from accessing emails, contacts, notes, appointments and other data items.

In order to get access to the data, OST files are required to be repaired. An inbuilt utility scanost.exe is used to scan and repair the OST files; however the utility has been removed from Outlook 2010. In earlier versions, the utility restructures the whole OST file and eliminates all the contents that are not readable because of corruption, which is a major drawback of the tool because there is a probability of losing important information.

As you saw, the offered utility is not much useful and may create additional data loss problems. Hence, it becomes necessary to convert an OST to PST file that allows users to access the entire OST data from the PST file.

Obviously, a user never wants to lose a single piece of data, hence it is necessary to carry out protected  conversion. It is great to choose adequate OST to PST converter that scans the entire OST file efficiently and recovers all the data in the form of PST file.

Note that there is a variety of such software applications that are written by IT experts using intelligent and advanced technologies. Moreover, they also overcome the limitation that users face in Outlook 2010 as these programs have compatibility with almost all MS Outlook versions. The software will help you to perform a complete and timely recovery. Such software programs are available over the Internet, hence you can get them by placing an online order.

Written By

I am Data Recovery Expert from Stellar Information System Ltd and currently doing research on Outlook PST Recovery Software, Outlook Express Recovery, Exchange Recovery.

8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. Sally

    June 16, 2013 at 7:07 pm

    It is good now that I know the offered utility can create additional data loss problems. Can become a drastic problem.

  2. Sally

    June 16, 2013 at 11:46 pm

    Does anyone know why my post keep saying I am Sally?

    • Admin

      June 17, 2013 at 9:12 am

      If your real name is not Sally then it must be our anti-spamming system that automatically replaces product names in the ‘Name’ field for example, (with random) real names. I would encourage you to use your real name when making comments as the system automatically deletes any associated link(s) in such cases before approval.

      • Mac

        June 17, 2013 at 5:07 pm

        Thanks Admin. Was great advice, well do.

      • Mac

        June 17, 2013 at 5:23 pm

        I thought it was kinda strange that I enter a link, and when I hover over my name, there is no link, while I hover over Admin, on your comment, there is a link. Is this because they deleted it.

        • Admin

          June 17, 2013 at 5:31 pm

          Naturally, links deemed as spam are automatically deleted. You may create a new forum topic to discuss your concerns in future. Thank you

  3. Bob

    June 17, 2013 at 1:23 pm

    If the OST file is orphaned or corrupted you can repair OST file with the help of Kernel for OST to PST software and save the contents to usable PST file. This software also supports OST file created with MS Exchange Server 2013

  4. leemarth

    August 16, 2013 at 11:41 am

    OST Files are offline storage table which is used by users in offline mode also to manage their data. But suddenly any corruption issue comes in OST file and which makes OST file inaccessible. To fix such type of issues take a advance Microsoft OST to PST converter software which will fix all issues and revive OST file on location. For detailed information you can visit following freeware utility of OST to PST: freeosttopst . in

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