Solution to Fix Corrupted OST File and Convert Into PST Format

Though PST files act as the main storage repository of all the data stored in MS Outlook account, another file named OST contains the replica of all data stored in Exchange Server. The OST file comes into use when the user needs to work in offline mode. Once the OST file is connected to Exchange Server, file will synchronize itself with Server where any changes made during offline mode will be updated. In this content, we will be discussing about OST file, its corruptions issues, errors due to corruption, how to fix the OST file and convert it into PST format.

Issues Related to OST File 

The OST file is very much prone to issues that may lead to corruption or inaccessibility. Some of the issues are as follows:

Exceeding Size limit of OST file

The OST file has its own size limit set by different versions of MS Outlook. Maximum OST file size in UNICODE format is 20 GB for Outlook 2007 and it has been increased to 50 GB for MS Outlook 2010/2013. By default, the maximum size is set as 20 GB, which is why when the OST file reaches or exceeds this limit; errors will be encountered slowing down the performance of Outlook and may lead to corruption.

Synchronization Issues

The main reason behind inaccessibility lies on the synchronization issues of OST file. The OST file can only be accessed in the Outlook profile for which it was created. It is because OST file is encrypted and we need decryption key of the Outlook profile that needs to be matched with the one present in Exchange Server during synchronization. If the keys do not match, OST file will not be accessible.

Errors due to Corrupted OST Files

The corrupted OST files will interrupt the smooth functioning of Outlook and users may encounter errors when they try to access the OST file in MS Outlook. Some Errors are as follows:

1. When there is any synchronization issues in OST file with an Exchange Server, this type of error is generated as shown below. 
   
   
   
   
   
2. This type of error is generated when OST file is not able to synchronize with an Exchange Server. 





3. The third most common error is also shown when the OST file is corrupted due to synchronization issues.

Fixing Corrupted OST File & Convert into PST

There are several methods for fixing the corrupted or inaccessible OST file. They are as follows:

Manual Method

Outlook Users can use an inbuilt utility scanost.exe to repair OST files that was present until MS outlook 2010 version. After that, scanpst.exe has been used for repair of both OST and PST files. Though the method makes the corrupted OST to healthy one, it takes unnecessary time and data are not recovered completely.

Third Party Tool

Since the manual method cannot give desired results, users switch to third party tools like OST PST Convert. The tool can successfully recover all the data items like emails, calendars, contacts etc. into PST format keeping the original formatting of all items intact. The users can apply Mail Filter to export only the desired mails that are in and between the date ranges specified.

Conclusion: After discussing all the feasible method to recover data items from our OST file, we can conclude that Third party tool is better option as it maintains the data integrity after conversion. The inbuilt utility may help repair the OST file but it cannot recover data lost due to corruption as it removes the corrupted area only. It is important to keep our OST files healthy or uncorrupted. However, if it is corrupted, we recommend using the OST recovery Tool for complete data recovery from OST file.

For more information visit here: http://www.ostconvert.com/