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.
