Microsoft Outlook PST file cannot be found
Outlook is amongst the most renowned and used email application based on desktop rather than browser. But even these applications are confronted with issues leading to failure of data accessibility that is available in it. Possibilities are that only on starting up your Outlook client you may confront with an error message as a welcome note which could be very disturbing. This segment talks over a similar issue where an error stating "Outlook PST cannot be found" is discussed. You can understand about related issues via this article and also learn about possible solutions for the same.
This segment is applicable for MS Outlook 2003 and 2007 users as the error has most specifically occurred in the mentioned versions of this client.
When Outlook is started up a slight probability is there that you may face an error that reads: "The file drive:\path\filename.pst could not be found."
This could be of serious concern and you will actually be barred from accessing your PST file.
Note: On clicking OK on the error dialog box, Outlook will pop up a window for "Create/Open Personal Folders File." This is for the times when there isn't a default profile configured on the client.
What Leads To This Error?
This unforeseen Outlook behavior could be the result of a situation where Outlook has delivered messages into a PST file while any of the following conditions are true:
- PST file in which Outlook is supposed to deliver your messages is on a mail Server which isn't available.
- Or, possibilities are that the target PST mailbox in which Outlook delivers messages is corrupted due to which it is unable for Outlook to locate it.
Note: This issue can also take place when PST file were located on a network drive and were not supported due to being unsupported by a LAN or WAN link.
Conclusion: Usual the issue takes place when PST file is found corrupt just make sure that before trying any tricks of repairing your PST; you have made a backup for the same.
Resolve The Problem
For resolving this kind of behavior try any of the mentioned procedures as per the situation you are facing.
1)Check for the Default Location:We all know that Outlook has a certain location to save all its mailbox data. So go to the default location and check for the PST file. If file is not available over there then check your Trash. Sometimes due to some reasons users delete it by mistake.
So, check the Trash, and if it the over there, then simply restore it back to the previous location.
2) Open New PST File: For opening a new PST file in case of unavailability of a default profile you can go to Open Personal Folders File and click on Open to browse a desired PST and open it.
3) Repair PST File: In case PST file was available but Outlook still kept on flashing the error Outlook PST cannot be found then it is probably because the data file is corrupt. You can make use of built in utility by Outlook; Scanpst.exe to make sure whether the file is corrupted or not as the utility is built to check integrity of PST files.
But the thing is that, ScanPST not able to fix the major corruption it can only fix the minor or header corruption of the Outlook data file.
Meanwhile, there are a number of commercial solutions available online that own the capability of repairing PST files even from the most damaging cases of corruption. One such is the, Outlook PST Recovery Software which is available as freeware version too to help users examine its facilities prior to purchase. Outlook PST cannot be found and similar errors can also be resolved with the same.
Including fixing the corruption, the tool also help to recover the deleted data items from Outlook and provide you an option to save the recovered data into different file formats.