Mark Minasi's Reader Forum
Mark Minasi's Reader Forum
Home | Profile | Register | Active Topics | Active Polls | Members | Search | FAQ | Minasi Forum RSS Feed
Username:
Password:
Save Password
Forgot your Password?

 All Forums
 HALP! Questions on Windows and Windows Server
 Office
 .PST >2GB
 New Topic  Topic Locked
 Printer Friendly
Author Previous Topic Topic Next Topic  

glt
Here To Stay

USA
200 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 09/16/2005 :  07:57:44 AM  Show Profile  Visit glt's Homepage
We have an End User using Outlook 2000. His .PST file is currently at 2.01GB. This will no longer open in Outlook, including if you attempt to import it into Outlook 2003 (my logic was that 2003 supports a far larger .PST file and therefore might work. NOT!).

We're in a Catch-22 situation: Outlook says in effect "This .PST is too large, delete messages" yet won't open the file so you *can* delete messages.

Is there any workaround for this? KB's I've gone through all relate to dealing with the issue when one is nearing that 2GB limit and can't send/receive...but not after the fact.

We're really in a bind as he needs some emails from this file and we've got to get this loaded, even if on another system so it doesn't overwrite any existing profiles...

Thanks!

pcmeiners
Honorable But Hopeless Addict

USA
1270 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 09/16/2005 :  08:56:24 AM  Show Profile
Backup, edit to reduce the size slightly , repair it
http://www.slipstick.com/problems/repair2gbpst.htm
Go to Top of Page

nickw
Sadly oft-gone father of two

Ireland
5404 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 09/17/2005 :  08:43:16 AM  Show Profile  Visit nickw's Homepage
Just for the record... if you update to Outlook 2003, the OST file would allow you to go to 20GB from memory....

Nick Whittome

Minasi Forums Administrator | Microsoft Small Business Server MVP | IT Support Ireland
Mark's Main Site | Forum FAQ | Forum Main RSS Feed | Active Users | My Blog| Twitter!

Go to Top of Page

Grasshopper
Welcome Newcomer

USA
24 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 01/27/2006 :  08:48:02 AM  Show Profile
You’ve probably already remedied this issue, but from my experience I’ve used the scanpst.exe within the OS and have had good success with that. After the scan it will tell you that some errors were found and if you want to fix them. Short of that I have the end users break up the pst file by Archiving it from a certain point. Have the pst archive reflect a year if need be.

Again, not too sure if this will help you, but I thought I’d through it out there.
Go to Top of Page

jaxdave
Honorable But Hopeless Addict

USA
2426 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 01/27/2006 :  09:51:33 AM  Show Profile
some backround info first. outlook 2003 pst files can be unicode which is the best format and one of the perks of o2k3. very large pst file support :) The bad news is you can not convert an old pst file ( ansi code ) into unicode.

With that said you are going to lose some email.

First thing we need to do is attempt the scanpst process.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=197316

if that fails we need to go to this util for help

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=296088

Here is an article on forcing outlook 2003 to create NEW pst files in the unicode format for the future

http://www.outlookpower.com/issues/issue200408/00001350001.html
Go to Top of Page

lawjizams
Welcome Newcomer

5 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 07/10/2006 :  05:25:33 AM  Show Profile
I've seen this problem numorous times. Good fixes I see work is the scanpst process. Another was the location of the pst(usually a server share for backup purposes)and just moving it to the local machine. Thats if its on a network share. Another would be if the user has alot of pst's in her/his outlook profile. I would create a new outlook profile with just that one pst and sometimes that helps too. Thats just my 2 cents that worked for me.

LaVar Watson
System Administrator
A+, Network +, Server +, MCP, MCSA 2000, MCSE 2000.

Edited by - lawjizams on 07/10/2006 05:26:56 AM
Go to Top of Page

Bernardo
Here To Stay

Netherlands Antilles
142 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 07/11/2006 :  5:07:35 PM  Show Profile  Visit Bernardo's Homepage  Click to see Bernardo's MSN Messenger address  Look at the Skype address for Bernardo
What also has worked for me was to import the PST file into Outlook Express

Bernardo
________________________
Men is from heaven and music is from heaven, and whenever you have found the key to music, you have found the key to heaven also...
Go to Top of Page

jadgate
Major Contributor

USA
917 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 07/11/2006 :  5:45:38 PM  Show Profile
Don't know if you've resolved this.

All of the above suggestions will work for Outlook versions prior to 2003, Nick is right about the 20 gig limitation, but the gotcha with that is that if you use Outlook 2003 to recover the file, you can't re-import the pst into an older version of Outlook. I worked in a support environment recently where we had to recover psts that hit the 2 gig limit at least twice a week (no Exchange to limit mailbox size). To recover, we used a third party program from Ontrack, the data recovery firm, instead of the free scanpst utility that Microsoft allows you to download. Just go to their Web site and you should find it there.

The reason we used the Ontrack program was that could recover psts that had been corrupted when they got to the 2 gig limit and split them into 2 smaller files automatically.

I agree that you should have the end-user archive the older emails. However, don't forget to compact the pst after archiving as the pst won't shrink after you archive until you compact it. Compacting can take some time, it's the kind of thing you want to start when you are leaving for the day and it should be done next morning..

Generally, you will start to see pst corruption at 1.2 gigs for pre-2003 Outlook psts, so you should educate end-users that they can loose data if they let their mailboxes grow beyond that - I've even seen corruption with ~900 mbyte psts.


Jim


James Adgate, CISSP
IT Auditor and Compliance Specialist
Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
IT Security Policy and Risk Mitigation for Enterprises
http://linkedin.com/in/jamesadgatech

Edited by - jadgate on 07/12/2006 1:22:16 PM
Go to Top of Page

clarinathan
Moderator

United Kingdom
4893 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 07/12/2006 :  05:20:03 AM  Show Profile  Visit clarinathan's Homepage  Click to see clarinathan's MSN Messenger address
Hi Jim,

I would definitely recommend the Ontrack products, I have had great success recovering 2GB+ PSTs (the old type) with these tools.

Cheers
Nathan

Nathan Winters - [MSFT] - Exchange Technical Specialist

Checkout my blog:
http://www.nathanwinters.co.uk
Go to Top of Page

wobble_wobble
Honorable But Hopeless Addict

Ireland
4516 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 04/25/2009 :  4:03:00 PM  Show Profile  Visit wobble_wobble's Homepage  Look at the Skype address for wobble_wobble
Was reading an article about PST's and then got wondering.

First the article;
http://windowsitpro.com/Windows/Articles/ArticleID/98540/pg/1/1.html

My question, how do I check if the pst is an old one, or a new Unicode version, we have a lot of clients that would have upgraded from previous OS's/ previous Office versions to XP and Vista on Office 2003 or 2007?
I have generated both types of pst's and they seem identical.

For those who do not want to read the article, a PST can have a theoretical size of 33TB, but does give info on changing the pst size.

Joe

After everything that has happened during the month of Jan 07, I do believe that pigs fly backwards!

http://whatismyv6.com/
Go to Top of Page

cj_berlin
Honorable But Hopeless Addict

Germany
3964 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 04/25/2009 :  4:44:44 PM  Show Profile  Visit cj_berlin's Homepage  Look at the Skype address for cj_berlin
quote:
Originally posted by wobble_wobble


My question, how do I check if the pst is an old one, or a new Unicode version



For a single file, just try to add it to an Outlook profile and select the new format - you'll get a warning message (at least in OL 2003) if it's the old one.

I suppose you could even script it if you need to mass-check.


Evgenij Smirnov
Go to Top of Page
  Previous Topic Topic Next Topic  
 New Topic  Topic Locked
 Printer Friendly
Jump To:
Mark Minasi's Reader Forum © 2002-2011 Mark Minasi Go To Top Of Page
This page was generated in 0.11 seconds. Snitz Forums 2000