Outlook ost files

**MarillionFan** · 15 June 2010, 20:46

Originally posted by suityou01 View Post

I have an emergency with a client of mine, and I have a few angles I can take, but wanted to see if there was a "best practice" route.

Basically the client was working for a Co that has gone bust. He still has the work laptop (legitimately) but can no longer access his emails as the exchange server no longer exists. They are all there in an outlookdata.ost file, just can't get at them. I think I need to convert this file to a pst file and all the apps I can find that don't cost $200 plus do not work with Outlook 2003 ost files.

Any ideas would be welcome.

Ta

SY01

I thought you could open in an offline mode and then convert. Failing that, I was under the impression you could convert using VBA

**suityou01** · 15 June 2010, 20:55

Originally posted by MarillionFan View Post

I thought you could open in an offline mode and then convert. Failing that, I was under the impression you could convert using VBA

Thanks for a quick response mate.

Offline mode is not necessarily an option (I think) as the user profile is tied to a domain that no longer exists, so I can no longer log in under that profile (and this is where the exchange server profile lives)

The vba route sounds interesting, I have no qualms writing code to use an api to enumerate the file, but just have an inkling that there must be something easier before resorting to code.

**blacjac** · 15 June 2010, 22:14

You should still be able to log in to the computer as the domain user when the computer is not connected to the network, this should enable you to start up outlook and export everything to a PST file.

Done this before on Vista with Outlook 2007 when some numpty deleted the exchange and AD user on the domain server

**suityou01** · 15 June 2010, 22:23

Originally posted by blacjac View Post

You should still be able to log in to the computer as the domain user when the computer is not connected to the network, this should enable you to start up outlook and export everything to a PST file.

Done this before on Vista with Outlook 2007 when some numpty deleted the exchange and AD user on the domain server

The exchange profile is no more, it is in effect an orphaned ost file. The is no mailbox to export from.

**pmeswani** · 16 June 2010, 05:44

Originally posted by suityou01 View Post

The exchange profile is no more, it is in effect an orphaned ost file. The is no mailbox to export from.

So the user has no ability to logon to his cached domain account and configure his outlook client to work in offline mode (which I guess it will be as I would have thought that was a pre-req for a .ost file)?

I saw this on the interweb

OST to PST conversion

Hope it helps.

**blacjac** · 16 June 2010, 18:14

Originally posted by suityou01 View Post

The exchange profile is no more, it is in effect an orphaned ost file. The is no mailbox to export from.

Which is exactly the same as my situation was....

the 'o' in ost stands for offline, its a copy of your mailbox that outlook uses when it can't connect to the server....

**suityou01** · 16 June 2010, 21:38

Originally posted by blacjac View Post

Which is exactly the same as my situation was....

the 'o' in ost stands for offline, its a copy of your mailbox that outlook uses when it can't connect to the server....

The ost file had become orphaned somehow, and client tells me that it was trying to set up an email account in Outlook express. The two apps (Outlook and express) do jockey to be the default email program, and somehow in the mele the account got orphaned.

I did some reading and decided that a paid for third party conversion tool was a good option. I downloaded a demo, and let it rip. It did a good job, and in the resulting pst file only exported 5 items from each folder (which is pretty standard).

Knowing that I had this position to fall back on (paying $49) I then did a system restore to a month ago. This restored the registry settings and "un-orphaned" the offline file. I then created a pst file and exported the whole lot across.

Thanks to MF for his PM's which were very, very constructive

**zlatan24** · 29 July 2010, 21:07

For me MS Outlook is very important application which work with emails. But some days ago I opened the tool and noticed an unpleasant problem. Rather all my emails were lost. But luckily I entered in the Internet and observed an utility -
www.recoverytoolbox.com/read_ost_file.html

It settled my issue for short time and completely free of charge as I bore in mind.

**Spacecadet** · 30 July 2010, 09:46

Originally posted by zlatan24 View Post

For me MS Outlook is very important application which work with emails. But some days ago I opened the tool and noticed an unpleasant problem. Rather all my emails were lost. But luckily I entered in the Internet and observed an utility -
Read ost file. Reading ost file without Outlook.

It settled my issue for short time and completely free of charge as I bore in mind.

Quick and cheap!
Brilliant

Outlook ost files