Occasionally your end users will open up their emails or personal folders and make the horrific discovery that their files have seemingly disappeared. They try a couple more times and then, after concluding that one of their co-workers has planted a virus or hacked into their email, they go bursting into your cubicle, panicking and pleading with you to please find their email!!!

Lucky for you, you know a thing or two about a thing or two

There are a couple of reasons why email disappears from email folders. One of those reasons is that the <dot> Personal Store (PST) folder for the default email has accidentally been deleted by a user for whatever reasons. It’s possible that the “Del” key was accidentally hit or the Shift plus Del key combination may have been mistakenly chosen. It’s also possible that the Deleted Items Folder was emptied out. And there will probably be the suspicion that someone other than the owner did remove it intentionally. So checking the logs will be an appropriate course of action once you – the administrator – have restored some office sanity.

And with viruses as common as they are today there always exists the possibility that Microsoft Outlook emails were lost due to a virus attack. Sometimes just the action of compacting a <dot> PST file can cause corruption due to the 2GB <dot> PST file size limit. If the <dot> PST file header is corrupted this can also lead unreadable emails.

Remember to never compact your <dot> PST files or save any new data after you have lost deleted any emails. You must first try to recover the deleted emails. Make sure that you close Microsoft Outlook and then run your recovery software to find your lost or deleted <dot> PST files and emails so you can recover them.

A missing <dot> PST folder can have other repercussions as well. Such as when the user goes to open Outlook Express they find that they are unable to open it unless they add a new user email account because the default <dot> PST email folder cannot be found.

One of the other actions you can perform as an administrator is to check to see if there are any <dot> PST files where they are supposed to located.

For example, the default location of a <dot> PST file in Windows 2000, XP or 2003 is:
(drivename):Documents and SettingsuserLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook

And the default location of a <dot> PST file in Windows Vista is:
(drivename):UsersuserAppDataLocalMicrosoftOutlook

Rest assured that your <dot> PST file(s) are not permanently deleted. They’re just marked as being deleted. Free space is opened up for more data to be stored. Just remember to not compact that PST file until you’ve attempted to recover it.

There used to be a problem with Outlook 2002 archived file data when the end user tried to open a <dot> PST file with Windows Explorer. It would appear as if the archived email file had been lost.

Using Windows Explorer on a computer running Windows 2000 to open a <dot> PST file, containing archived data, would result in an error message similar to the following:

“An error occurred in the folder shortcuts file (.fav). Outlook will re-create the default folder shortcuts. “

Clicking OK would result in a second message being displayed:

“Outlook could not save the updated folder shortcuts information. Check to make sure there is sufficient disk space and that the file path.pst is not marked read-only. Another attempt to save will be made after next change or when you exit.”

At this point if your end user clicked OK it would result in the file size shrinking rather dramatically. And the worst part was that the archived information disappeared.

What was happening is that when the <dot> PST file was opened under th0se conditions – running Windows Explorer and Windows 2000 – it would cause the file to opened in an editable state and thus, to Outlook, make it unusable.

The way to get past this problem is to use the Data File Management command in Outlook’s File menu to open the <dot> PST file for viewing.

You can also try running an email inbox repair tool – such as Microsoft  “Scanpst.exe” – but there are email recovery tools and software on the market that are much more robust and include advanced algorithms specifically designed to recover lost data from Microsoft Outlook <dot> PST email archive files.

As you can see, relying on your PST files as your only source of backups can be pretty risky. This is one of the reasons why email archiving software tools have evolved to add additional layers of protection to your email management strategy.

Having an email archiving tool in your backup and recovery strategy can protect you, as an administrator, and your company from the many problems that go with litigation and discovery, regulatory compliance, email retention policies, lifecycle management and more. Should the need arise; you will be able to confidently reproduce archived emails, both internal and external, with a robust email archiving system in place.