Outlook 2003 corrupt profile and now missing data from Outlook PST files.

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No avatar asked by (160 points) about Microsoft Office Outlook
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I had a user that had a corrupt Outlook 2003 profile with multiple PST files attached to it. I deleted and created a new Outlook profile and then went to relink each PST. About 10 of them. However, when we look in the PST files, it appears that anything from Oct or Nov 2010 to the present is missing. Anything older is still there. Does anyone know why or how to restore those missing messages? Of course there was no backup of the PSTs stored on the local drive.

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No avatar answered by (460 points)
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• Step 1: Close Outlook. Completely. That means it has to be 100% NOT open; sometimes Outlook actually takes a little while to close after it disappears. If in doubt, press Control+Alt+Delete to pull up Task Manager, hit the Processes tab, click on every "OUTLOOK.EXE" listed and hit [End Process] for each.
• Step 2: Open the "Mail" control panel. Click on "Data files." You will see a list of Outlook data files that are currently loaded into the mail subsystem in Windows. You need to create a new data file, and be sure to give it a name other than "Personal Folders" at the top, so you won't get confused in the next steps. The other options you pick really don't matter; you can accept the defaults for everything and it'll be fine. Don't set a password for the .pst file unless you want to make your life painful, though!
• Step 3: After you see your new data file appear in the list, hit OK or Close to return to the Mail control panel. HIt the first button (it should say something about E-mail accounts), and if you get another screen asking what it is you want to do with E-mail accounts rather than just getting the list, hit the button for managing existing accounts and click Next. At the bottom, under the list of mail accounts, there is a drop-down box for the "default mail delivery location." CHANGE THIS to match the name of the new file that you created earlier. (If you have two "Personal Folders" entries, you didn't name it earlier, so choose the LAST file in the list and it should be the correct one.) Then click OK or Close.
• Step 4: Click on [Data files] again, and the new data file should have an indication that it is now the "default mail delivery location." This will then allow you to remove the old data file from the list, which is safe to do, so go ahead and toss it now to prevent possible confusion later. Click OK or Close after you've removed the old file from the list.
• Step 5: Close the Mail control panel. Open Outlook again. You may receive warnings about the things you've just changed; this is normal and you can simply click through them. You should now have a new, empty set of folders, with no contacts or mail whatsoever. The last step is to bring all of your old mail, contacts, tasks, etc. into the shiny new empty folders file. Go to File, then Import and Export. Choose to import from another program or file, and click Next. In the list, choose to import an Outlook personal folders file (.pst), and click Next again. If you are asked about how to import duplicates, choose to "replace duplicates with items imported" (though technically it shouldn't matter which you pick). When you finally receive a blank in which to specify the file to import, click Browse.
• Step 6: In case previous 5 steps can't assist you, then you may refer to https://www.repairtoolbox.com/outlookrepair.html Outlook Repair Toolbox

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No avatar answered by (309k points)

There is no possibility to extract the data if no backup was done on the local drive. According to what you're saying, it appears the data from the No 2010 was not correctly backed up or saved, therefore recovery is practically impossible. You can't attempt any recovery on the files if no backup was previously done. You can try an application developed to recover or repair the PST files, but since it's a very long period of time, I don't think you'll recover much.

Use the database of Software Informer to download an application that can attempt a possible recovery on the mentioned files.

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