Resolving ‘.pst could not be found’ Error

Once in a while, the PST (Personal Storage Folder) file of MS Outlook gets damaged, or otherwise harmed on an apparently regular basis. The reason of such problems could be PST 2 GB size limitation, insufficient system resources, unexpected power outage, etc. As a result, you might start receiving errors while starting or working with MS Outlook. To be specific, consider the following error message: 

“The file drive:\path\file name.pst could not be found.”

Here, drive:\path\file name.pst refers to the complete path of corrupted PST file. This error occurs when you start MS Outlook and the default PST is corrupted. In order to Repair PST in such conditions, continue reading.

Note: If the PST has not been stored locally, the same error can occur because of unavailability of the server. Microsoft does not support Network storage of PST file.

Repairing PST

A corrupted/damaged PST can be fixed using built-in utility of MS Outlook called Inbox Repair Tool. To run this tool, you will need to access its executable file – Scanpst.exe. Unless you are aware of its exact location, you might need to follow the below steps to locate the file:

1. Click Start
2. Click Files or Folders after pointing to Search
3. In the Search for files or folders named box, type ‘scanpst.exe’, and click Search Now
4. The Scanpst.exe must be visible now. Double-click it to run the tool.

The above steps may vary on the basis of Windows version. Before you run the tool, it is advised to backup the file. You can also view the log file of the process that has the same name as of PST file, but with .log file name extension. 

More Information

Inbox Repair Tool has limited PST Repair capabilities and so, in some situations, it might fail. To overcome such issues, you need a more powerful, third-party utility to repair and recover PST. These tools can run comprehensive, yet safe, scanning algorithms to analyze and then repair the corrupted PST.

Applies to

• Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
• Microsoft Office Outlook 2007

The necessity to Split PST

Microsoft Office Outlook is generally used in rapid communication environment. With each exchange of e-mails and other vital business information, your mailbox gets piled up. This is the reason why you see a dramatic change in Outlook PST (Personal Storage Folder) file size and hence, in Outlook performance. Moreover, large PST files can turn into a serious source of trouble if you use Outlook 2002 or an older version. Let me explain why.

MS Office Outlook 2002 and its older versions use ANSI (American National Standards Institute) format PST, which allows a threshold value of only 2 GB. Also, PST is a database. Therefore, when you delete any item (for say, an e-mail, note, contact or journal) from Outlook PST, it doesn’t bring any considerable effect in its file size. It only makes the occupied space available. The PST file can land up in corruption or might leave Outlook lethargic if in case the file size is about to reach the threshold value.

In order to work around the issue, if not totally eliminate, you need to manage your PST before it could cause troubles. For the purpose, you should act fast to split PST file by using a third party tool.

To know if you really need a split PST tool, check out your PST file size by performing few simple steps, underlined below:

1. Select your mailbox displaying in the left panel of Outlook window
2. Right-click the mailbox and click Properties
3. Click the folder size button

If you find your PST bulky, download and start splitting your file.

A PST file splitter doesn’t hamper the overall productivity of Outlook. It splits wisely, while ensuring that even a single bit of data is preserved. Such tools provide multiple parameters to divide your file, for example, on the basis of date.

Each small chunk of PST is usable within Outlook and is independent of the original PST file. To experience the power of split PST tools, start downloading now.

Applies To:

• Microsoft Office Outlook 2002
• Microsoft Office Outlook 2000
• Microsoft Office Outlook 98

Tips to resolve “object tables or DMS tablespaces are corrupt...” Error

A tablespace in DB2 database can become offline due to various reasons like low system memory (system ran out of space), tablespace corruption, hardware failure, application malfunction, improper system shutdown, and many more reasons. In case of tablespace going offline, a user encounters an error message while mounting the database, which results into inaccessibility of its records saved in tables. Such tablespace corruption scenarios can be handled easily if the user maintains a regular backup. However, if in the user has forgot to create a backup or the backup file is inaccessible, then the user can execute the Recover command to recover the table spaces. While Recover command is handy in recovering tablespaces and pages in them, there are times when the command fails to deliver the desired output. For such situations, a DB2 user needs to opt for effective DB2 database recovery software.


To illustrate the above scenario, here is an error message that appears after the corruption of DB2 tablespaces:

“ERROR: One or more object tables or DMS tablespaces are corrupt. Some tablespaces may not be usable.”

The above error message appears every time the user attempt to mount the database.


Cause:

As discussed in the error message, tables or tablespaces are corrupt.


Recover DB2 database:

To resolve the above error message and mount the DB2 database, the user needs to follow either of the below steps:

• Use Recover command to ensure complete recovery of tablespace and table data.
• Use an updated online backup to restore the data

In case both the above options fail to display the desired output, then the user needs to opt for a third-party DB2 database recovery tool that can repair the database.


Data Recovery Info:

A DB2 recovery utility is powerful utility to recover DB2 database after all logical corruption situations. These DB2 recovery applications are totally non-destructive as they do not make any change in original database. These database recovery tools can be installed on almost all Windows operating systems and are competent enough to recover almost all database objects like tables, buffer pools, containers, views, and schemas.


Applied For:

DB2 (UDB) v8

Solving ‘PowerPoint cannot open the type of file’ Error

Encountering an error message while trying to open or access a PowerPoint presentation can be annoying. Since it needs a good deal of time and efforts to create an effective presentation, such errors usually demand an immediate PPT Recovery attention. If you are getting any of such error messages, this article might help. For example, you might receive an error message similar to below:

“PowerPoint cannot open the type of file represented by filename.ppt."

Fixing the Issue

This error can appear out of several reasons. You can try the following solutions to fix the problem.

Cause 1: The file is password-protected and you are trying to open it in previous version of PowerPoint.

Solution: You can resave the file without password-protection or try to open the file using PowerPoint 2003 Viewer.

Cause 2: You are using PowerPoint 2003 and observing issues opening a file created in a previous version of PowerPoint.

Solution: To solve this issue, you need to install the Critical Update for PowerPoint 2003. For this, you can open ‘Help’ menu, click ‘Check for Updates’, and then install the relevant update.

Cause 3: The file is indeed corrupt

Solution: In order to extract data from a corrupted presentation, you can try these tricks:

• Open a new blank presentation and try to insert the slides from the corrupt presentation to it. To do so, use ‘Slides from Files’ option of ‘Insert’ menu.
• Open the corrupt presentation in other programs like, MS Word
• Move the file to a different location. This trick usually works if you are trying to open the file from a removable media.
• Start the PowerPoint or computer in safe mode and try to open the file. To start PowerPoint in safe mode, click ‘Start’, ‘Run’, and then type ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\Powerpnt.exe" /safe’ in ‘Open’ box. (Check the correct path for your PowerPoint version).

More Information

If you don’t have any luck to open the corrupted presentation by using any of the aforementioned methods, use a third-party PPT Recovery Software. These tools can prevent your re-work and repair a corrupted PPT file within few minutes. A PPT Recovery tool scans a corrupted presentation using effective yet safe algorithms. In addition, these tools are highly effective in terms of interactivity with users.

Applies to

• MS PowerPoint 2002
• MS PowerPoint 2003

Resolve “Server: Msg 8966” & “Server: Msg 8944” Errors

DBCC DBREINDEX is a command used by DBAs to drop a previous index and then re-create a new index. The offline operation helps the DBAs to reorder indexes and recreate new disk space by compacting all the pages. While DBCC DBREINDEX command provides more optimization than executing separate DROP INDEX and CREATE INDEX commands, it is advisable not to use this command very frequently. A tightly packed database index is always a better option because there might be instances when after recreating indexes, the database table becomes corrupt and unmountable. In such situations, it becomes almost impossible to access the records saved in the database.

Furthermore, when a DBA tries to repair the table by using DBCC CHECKTABLE command, s/he might encounter the below error message:

“Server: Msg 8966, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Could not read and latch page (1:24) with latch type SH. sysindexes
failed.
Server: Msg 8944, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Table error: Object ID 2, index ID 0, page (1:24), row 11. Test
(!(hdr->r_tagA & (VERSION_MASK | RECTAG_RESV_A | RECTAG_RESV_B)))
failed. Values are 95 and 193.
Server: Msg 8944, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Table error: Object ID 2, index ID 0, page (1:24), row 11. Test
(GetRecType (pRec) >= 0 && GetRecType (pRec) <= LAST_REC_TYPE) failed.
Values are 14 and 12.
CHECKTABLE found 0 allocation errors and 2 consistency errors in table
'sysindexes' (object ID 2).
DBCC execution completed. If DBCC printed error messages, contact your
system administrator.”

Repairing Database Table:

To surmount the above error message and access the database table records, a DBA needs to delete the database table and restore the table from an up-to-date database backup. The option of restoring the table might fall short under below circumstances:

• DBA has not maintained full backup of the database table.
• The backup of database table is unavailable or incomplete.

In case the above problem persists due to any of the two reasons, then the DBA can opt for an third-party SQL recovery application that can repair the table and restore it at user-specified location.

Data Recovery Info:

A commercial SQL recovery tool repairs corrupted SQL database tables and brings them back in usuable state. Such recovery software also provide a preview of all the recoverable records saved in the table. The table can be restored at default or new location.

Applied For:

SQL Server 2005

How to Solve an ‘Unable to display the folder’ Error?

For those who use Microsoft Office Outlook, PST (Personal Storage Folder) corruption is an all-too-often incidence. Such can be the case when you receive one of the following error messages while opening MS Outlook or opening any of its folders:

“Error: Unable to display the folder”

A PST can get corrupted due to following reasons:

• PST exceeds its file size limit i.e. 2 GB
• You shut down the computer before exiting Outlook and hence closing PST
• You share the PST over a networked drive

Repairing PST

Microsoft Outlook comes with a pre-installed PST Repair utility called Inbox Repair Tool (Executable through Scanpst.exe file). The tool analyzes the entire PST structure and item headers. It then recovers whatever that is recoverable and deletes the unreadable.

To start with, take a backup of your corrupted PST and run Inbox Repair Tool (Scanpst.exe) on one of the PST files. To do so, follow these steps:

• Exit MS Outlook
• Click Start and then point to Search or Find (depending on your operating system)
• Type ‘scanpst.exe’ in Search for files or folders named box and hit ENTER
• Double click the file resulted in search results
• In Enter The Name Of The File You Want To Scan box, type the file name and path or locate the file using Browse
• Click Start
• After PST Recovery, launch MS Outlook and open the profile that is associated with the damaged PST
• The recovered folders and items can be viewed in Recovered Personal Folders or Lost and Found folder

If the PST is still not accessible, the file is probably damaged beyond repair. You might need to delete the damaged PST from the profile.

Data Recovery Info

 

In situations when Inbox Repair Tool fails to repair the PST, you can use a third-party tool. In contrast to Inbox Repair Tool, these PST Recovery Software run much effective scanning algorithms and do not delete the data. These are easily available tools and can help you get most out of your corrupted PST.

Applies To

• Microsoft Outlook 2002
• Microsoft Outlook 2000
• Microsoft Outlook 98
• Microsoft Outlook 97

How to Solve MS Access ‘Unrecognized Database Format’ Error?

The extensibility of MS Access database format is the main reason why sometimes users fail to determine the Access database corruption. This happens because crashes and errors can also root from macros, VBA code, plug-ins, and the like reasons. To exemplify, let’s consider the following error message that can occur while trying to open an Access database:

‘Unrecognized Database Format’

This error can appear for the reasons mentioned below:

• You are trying to open an Access database in an earlier version.
• You are trying to open a corrupted/damaged database.

Fixing the Issue 

If ‘Unrecognized Database Format’ occurs while attempting to open the database in an earlier version, you can apply any of the below possible solutions:

• Open the Access database in the later version of MS Access it was created
• Convert the database to the earlier version of MS Access. For this, you need to have the newer version of MS Access and follow the steps given below:
• Open the database (If the database is shared, ensure that it is not opened)
• Click Tools menu and point to Database Utilities. Click Convert Database and then To Access version File Format, where version is the version of MS Access to which you want to convert the database
• Type the name of the file in File name box of Convert Database Into dialog box and click Save

If ‘Unrecognized Database Format’ occurs while attempting to open the corrupted database, you need to implement any of the given solutions:

• Restore the database from your last working backup
• Use ‘Compact and Repair’ utility to repair Access database. To do so, follow these steps:
• Close the database (If the database is shared, ensure that it is not opened)
• Backup the database
• Click Tools menu and point to Database Utilities. Click Compact and Repair Database
• From Database to Compact From dialog box, specify the name of the file and click Compact
• In Compact Database Into dialog box, specify the destination and name of the compacted Access file and click Save

Data Recovery Info

 

If ‘Compact and Repair’ utility is unable to fix the database corruption, you need a powerful third-party Access Recovery software to perform the repair. These are well-equipped products that can repair Access Database within clicks. The software use high-end plus safe scanning algorithms that result a complete Access Repair of corrupted database.

Applies To

• Microsoft Access 97
• Microsoft Access 2000
• Microsoft Access 2002
• Microsoft Access 2003