Monday, March 19, 2012

OST to PST Converter is an impeccable solution for OST file corruption

Microsoft Outlook is a renowned name in the world of business emails, as one of the most popular and extensively deployed email client. The reason why enterprises love Outlook is the fact that it works as a client for MS Exchange Server that helps to maintain a collaborative environment.

The beauty of MS Outlook lies in its ability to incorporate the accessibility to user mailbox data even in the absence of Exchange Server. This is possible with the use of Outlook OST files. OST files or Offline Storage Tables are the carbon copy of a user mailbox and get stored on the user's computer.

The OST file allows that user to access his email, contacts, notes, attachments, tasks and calendar entries in the offline mode. This OST file synchronizes with the Exchange Server and updates all the offline work to the actual Exchange mailboxes.

For a regular Exchange user, these OST files are the life line as they will contain cardinal data and information and allow that user offline accessibility. But these OST files are prone to corruption on account of certain hardware and software factors. Some of these may be a virus attack on the computer system, abrupt Outlook termination, synchronization error, hard disk failure, poor network connection or more.

With a threat of OST file corruption lingering behind, Microsoft has provided a free inbuilt utility to repair the corrupt OST file which is Inbox Repair Tool or Scanost. Scanost is one of the best utilities by Microsoft and it can make the unusable OST file, back to usable. The way Scanost works is that it compeletely restructures the Outlook OST file which can sometimes lead to loss of some vital data.

Often times, the corruption degree is too high or the OST file is orphaned and Scanost is not able to repair the file. When Scanost fails, there are commercial third party OST to PST Converter tools available in the market that can successfully Convert Outlook OST to PST. These software create usable PST file with all the vital data from the corrupt OST. This newly created PST file can be easily imported to Outlook.

Though the Inbox Repair Tool is not very easy to use and requires technical knowledge, the third party OST to PST Converter tools are very easy to use. Moreover, a complete step by step user guide is available along with real time tech support for any queries or issues regarding the software.

One such commercial solution is “Stellar Phoenix OST to PST Converter”. This is a powerful OST to PST Converter tool that has an interactive GUI and high compatiblity with all major versions of MS Outlook. This dexterous tool is also available in a risk free demo version that offers a preview of the user mailbox items such as emails, contacts, attachments, notes and calendar in a three view structure.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

An efficacious fix for Outlook OST corruption issues

OST file is the twin of user mailbox stored on the Exchange Server. OST files make it possible for Outlook users to access their mailbox data in the absence of Exchange Server. All the emails, contacts, notes, tasks, journals, calendar entries and attachments are stored on the local machine that enables working in offline mode.

OST file is a vital data source for its user. Everytime the connection with the Exchange Server is established, the OST file synchronizes with the server mailbox and the work done offline is updated. OST files are required to work in the absence of Exchange Server which can be triggered by many factors, such as, Exchange Server downtime, network connection issues, Exchange maintenance or upgrade etc.

Over time the Outlook OST file grows in size. Since, in the earlier versions of MS Outlook the maximum file size for OST file was 2 GB, these files would soon outgrow the maximum permissible limit and become corrupt. To overcome this shortcomming, in the later versions of Outlook the default OST size limit was increased from 20 GB (Outlook 2003/2007) to 50 GB (Outlook 2010).

Another point of concern is that the OST file is stored on the user's computer and any sort of virus attack on the system or bad sectors on the storage drive can lead to the corruption in the OST file. There are end number of known and unknown factors that can cause corruption in the Outlook OST file. Keeping this in mind, Microsoft has provided the Inbox Repair Tool to repair the corrupt or damaged OST file. But this tool is not capable to repair the affected file in almost all the cases.

When the corruption degree is too high, professional tools are required to perform Outlook OST Recovery. The perfect fix for OST file corruption is to convert OST to PST and recover all the vital data using third party tools. A corrupt or damaged OST file is lost and becomes unusable. By converting it into a usable PST file, the data can be recovered hassle free.

One of the preeminent tools is “Stellar Phoenix OST to PST Converter”. This dexterous utility converts the severly damaged OST files to PST and recovers all the emails, attachments, appointments, contacts, notes, tasks and calendar entries intact. The software preserves the original RTF and HTML formatting of the messages while converting. This adroit tool to convert OST to PST is compatible with MS Outlook 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002 and 2000.