Outlook 2000 in a Nutshell

Using the Inbox Repair Tool

Outlook seldom munges its own information stores. When it does, however, a lot of data hangs in the balance. Fortunately, Microsoft provides the Inbox Repair Tool, which can usually fix damaged .pst and .ost files successfully. Even files that are so badly corrupted that Outlook refuses to open them can often be fixed. Running the Inbox Repair Tool performs eight checks on the designated information store, and allows you to make a backup of the damaged store before making the repair attempt. Even if the Inbox Repair Tool is unable to fix the damaged file entirely, it at least salvages as much data as possible.

To run the Inbox Repair tool, change to \Program Files\Common Files\System\Mapi\1033\NT and double-click scanpst.exe to display the Inbox Repair Tool dialog. Enter the full path and filename of the .pst file you want to check, or use Browse to select it. Once you have entered the name of a .pst or .ost file, the Inbox Repair Tool activates the Start button, as shown in Figure 13-13.

Figure 13-13. Outlook’s Inbox Repair Tool dialog

Click Options if you want to set logging options for the repair process. You can elect to disable logging, add to an existing log, or replace the existing log, as shown in Figure 13-14.

Figure 13-14. Scanpst’s log file options ...