Outlook PST issue

KGhaleon

I reimaged a machine for someone a couple days ago and backed-up all their data beforehand. He had 8 PST files that I grabbed, and I stored them on a network location.

A day or two later he told me his emails were gone and he had data missing. I examined his PST files and found that the files were much smaller than the ones I had backed-up, so I restored them. The problem occured again later that day...the PSTs shrunk in size. The folders in the PSTs are empty.

I recreated his profile and tried removing outlook from the registry so it would readd the settings. I readded the PSTs and even added the PST to my own outlook to see if the emails were there...but nothing. The PST still has emails, but half the folders are empty and he says they were full. I ran scanpst.exe and it found no errors.

I'm inclined to believe he screwed himself before the reimage, but I dunno. He doesn't seem the type to lie. Anything else I can check? I checked for filters or rules but I didn't see anything.

kalebksp

Perhaps they were archived? I believe that Outlook keeps a seperate archive PST.

When you delete an email from Outlook the PST doesn't instantly get smaller, over time it will remove the old emails from the PST. Maybe the PST was getting smaller because Outlook was removing references to the archive PST. I'm no expert but it might be worth checking out.

There is also a method of recovering deleted emails by corrupting the PST described here. You could give that a try.

HeroPsycho

Questions:

How big was each PST file before the problem?
Was he accessing the PST's over the network?

blargoe

When you checked for PST files did you just grab whatever was in the default user profile location (username\local settings\application data\microsoft\outlook or something like that), or did you open his outlook client and inspect the path of each attached PST file he was working from? If not, perhaps he was working from files that were in a different location that what you checked when you blew away the machine.

If you think something may have happened to the files after you stored them to the network, did you try to go back to the server backup of whatever share you saved them to and compare file sizes, maybe restore a copy back to the network from the day that you saved it, and see if the data's there?

KGhaleon

Yes, I always take a snapshot of where his psts are located before I reimage. I counted 8 of them(in data file management/outlook) and noted they were all in one location under his profile, so I grabbed them and made sure the filesizes were correct.

They were backed up and the machine was reimaged, but now I am seeing no emails in the PSTs...as if they weren't there to begin with. The PSTs don't exceed 2GB.

I compared the sizes and he has exactly what I took from his machine.

Not sure what you mean by an archive pst. I restored the ones visible in outlook.