Running Scanpst For A Pst Over 2 Gb Fails

By Author: Mohit Mathur
Total Articles: 105
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Most of the PST corruption issues in Outlook 2003 (only HTTP and POP3 accounts), Outlook 2002 and its earlier versions result because of 2 GB file size limitation. If the file grows beyond this limit, its chances of getting corrupted also grow. Irrespective of this fact, Microsoft doesn't provide any utility that might repair corrupted ANSI PST of size greater than 2GB. The existing Scanpst.exe tool works only when you truncate the oversized PST to a size below 2 GB. Since PST truncation can delete your important e-mails, this method of repairing a corrupted PST, which is above 2 GB in size, is less recommended.

To further clarify such problems, let's analyze a realistic problem of an oversized PST, which gets corrupted because of PST 2 GB problem. The file contains information that you cannot lose. Thus, in order to repair the file, you locate the Scanpst file and launch it to start Inbox Repair Tool, but repair cannot be succeeded. You observe one of the following symptoms when trying to repair the oversized, corrupted PST:

(1) Inbox Repair Tool exits without notifying the cause.

(2) When you click 'Repair' ...
... after specifying the PST file name and path, it prompts the below or similar error message:

Fatal Error: 80040900

A corrupted PST cannot be repaired using Inbox Repair after you observe any of the above symptoms.

Outlook's Inbox Repair Tool has been so designed that it cannot repair an ANSI PST that is above 2 GB in size. However, it has Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 default file format, which is Unicode, these issues are rare.

To resolve these problems and to repair an ANSI PST that is above 2 GB, the possible solutions are listed below:

(1) Use PST 2 GB truncation utility to truncate the file and later repair it using Scanpst.exe tool. Keep in mind to backup your PST before applying the truncation utility as this can delete some of your most important data.

(2) Use a third-party PST file repair utility to repair and restore a corrupted PST. These are special tools that can fix PST file corruption, irrespective of the root of damage.

Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair is a high-end utility that is used to repair a corrupted PST and restore its data to a new PST file, without changing the affected one. With more powerful algorithms than Scanpst utility, this tool supports MS Outlook 2007, 2003, 2002, and 2000.

Mohit Mathur has passion for writing Technical articles. He is right now writing articles related to products like Scanpst & PST Repair and has now become a professional writer.
For more information please visit:- http://www.scanpst.net/