Learn More about PST file repair

A .The pst file is the file that contains almost all your Outlook information. This is not only your email, but contacts, the tasks list, all of your calendar information and your notes. This is an extremely important file, so you should know how to repair PST file in advance of a problem occurring. Imagine how frustrated you would be if you lost all this critical date just like that. Read this article to learn how to PST File Repair.

In Outlook all your folders, e-mails and contact information is kept in one single file .pst file. For many different reasons the PST file can become corrupt, often times larger pst files seem to be at greater risk. If this happens, don’t panic. There are several ways you can repair the .pst file.

The first thing you should do is to make a backup of the .pst file. Don’t wait until the file crashes, do it now. If your data is very important to you then you should consider backing up your PST weekly, if it is more for casual use then consider doing it once a month or getting an online backup program like the one linked in this article. In Windows Explorer you should copy the Outlook PST file to a safe location like a secondary drive.   Better yet check out this Online Vista Back article.Backing up all your computer files online is one of the smartest ways to go.  Your .The pst file location will varry but for most people it can be found at drive:Documents and SettingsuserLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook. If your .pst file becomes corrupt then you can just remove it and replace it with your backup or attempt the repair method we have covered in this article .pst file with the backup, or simply drag the backup file back into place. Outlook will need to be closed to drag the file into place or back it up.

But if you need to know how to repair pst file, the first thing to try is the Inbox Repair Tool. The location will varie but for all Outlook programs pre 2007 is will be a close match to drive:Program FilesCommon FilesSystemMapiLocaleID and titled scanpst.exe.exe. Take not that the LocaleID is specific to your computer and depending on what Outlook version you have it may or may not even have this last folder. Browse there from your Start, Run menu and click OK. Even if you have a backup, choose the option to make a backup before repairing.

Once the repair tool gets done running it will prompt you telling you if it was able to make hte repair or not. If not, you will need to use your backup copy or download a commercial PST repair tool. Many of these are very good, and a lot of them are try before you buy, so you can make sure that they work before you purchase them. The main goal of this article is to get you into the habit of making a backup of your PST file, we also highlight how to repair your Outlook PST file.