Recover .pst file - Outlook

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ultramel1987

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Hi there

I need to find an email that was sent through MsOutlook, however, since the email was sent, my friend's pc crashed, and he had to reload outlook... Is there any way to recovering the pst file from before outlook was reloaded?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated..

ps I have already given him the "make backups" speech :-)

thank you :-)
 
Did he format the drive?
Or did he just re-install Outlook?

What operating system is he using? Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7?
 
If he did not format the drive then he might still be able to recover the .pst files
The files might still be sitting on the drive.
If that is not possible you should be able to recover the files from HDD with data recovery software if it was not overwritten.

But answer the questions Gary asked above first before we proceed. Also what version of outlook was he using as they store files in different places?
 
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Have a look in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

That is where Outlook 2007 stores the Outlook.pst file on Windows 7. Well that's the default location unless it was specified as something else by the user.
Alternatively just do a search for *.pst on the entire HDD C:\
 
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If that fails get a copy of Ontrack Easy Recovery Professional and try to recover the files off the HDD.
 
thank you. will try that...in the meantime, regarding the search. It returns no results for *.pst files. I even tested the search on another pc which I know the location of the *.pst file, and it doesnt find it in the search? what could prevent windows from searching for that file?
 
Just tried it, leave out the * so just search for .pst which worked for me.
Apologies.
 
cool. found it....(on my pc) thank you. If the search does not find the .pst on friends pc, will try recover as suggested above.
thank you so much
 
Have you done a full search on the HD for the file yet?

What is troubling is the whole Pc crashed and had to reload Outlook thing. Something smells there.....
 
If it's been deleted from the drive, try Recuva by piriform, good freeware app.. otherwise getdataback for ntfs/fat32 - might still be recoverable
 
Thank you to everyone who assisted me, but unfortunately it seems that everything before Jan 2011 is gone. And that is when Outlook was re-loaded, so my guess is that it was the hard drive that was re-loaded and not just outlook.

Is there perhaps another way to somehow recover an email that was sent if it no longer on your hard drive?
 
we have contacted the company who does their mail and hosting etc, they cannot locate any such email on their system. Is there perhaps another way? this email is extremely important, and if anyone has any info that could perhaps assist me, I would really appreciate it. thank you
 
If the the OS and everything was reinstalled the .pst file that might have been on the hard drive could have been overwritten so not even data recovery software will help.
If he has no copies on the mail server then there is pretty much nothing you can do.

Gmail can do wonders for you, leave a copy on the server and also have a local copy. If you cant migrate to gmail at least setup an account and let it collect your mail from the existing pop/imap server so you have a backup copy there.

Did you try Ontrack?
 
Hi.
File recovery software can recover files even if the drive was formatted by doing a "Long Search" volume based search instead of a drive search.

Problem is when you format the and reinstall the os, copy or reinstall outlook might overwrite the section where the previous PST was saved.

In the past i have used FileScavanger with success, you can also try NTFS undelete which is free.
I think the trial FileScav will allow you to search but not recover, doing this you can at least see if its possible to find your file.

But make sure you do a long search on normally disk 1
from there make sure you recover to a memory stick or other pysical volume.
 
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