The initial version of this article went into a lot of detail about how we tested various corruption methods and how neither Outlook nor Stellar Phoenix were able to correct them. And we didn’t have the original file as a control group. We’re saying that we weren’t able to test this product with a properly corrupted PST file. But what we really needed was a file that was properly corrupted so that it could be repaired.
When the software can’t write to the hard drive it “hiccups” in a predictable pattern that can be fixed by software like Stellar Phoenix’s Outlook Repair tool.Īnyone can create a file that can’t be opened by the software that’s supposed to open it. Your computer writes data to these files in a somewhat predictable pattern and when you try to corrupt the file randomly you’re creating an unpredictable pattern that most tools can’t fix.
The long answer is that you can’t easily corrupt a PST in a way that is recoverable - not with typical desktop tools.
The short answer is that you open the PST file in a text editor, add or remove some characters, save, and then try to open the file in Outlook. So, without pouring coffee into an overheating laptop that’s sick of my trope comments, how do you corrupt a PST? If you clicked “send” on that message you’ve been composing for the past 20 minutes at the same time your hard drive decided it had enough of your trope comments, then your PST may get corrupted.Īfter you fixed the hard drive issues then you might find that the whole PST was corrupt. Let’s say your PST was sitting on your laptop but your disk drive was having issues.
You have a VERY large Outlook PST file which your IT manager keeps telling you to archive but you, “never have the time”.
We didn’t spend a lot of time researching the various ways you can intentionally corrupt a PST file but, in general, PST corruption happens when:
We tested all of these tools on a Windows 10 Virtual Machine from VirtualBox with Outlook 2013 and the 8.0 version of Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair. So a good part of the following article discusses PST corruption in general, how we tried to corrupt their PST file even further, and how we tested both the Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair tool and the native Outlook Inbox Repair tool. And we didn’t have a control group to test against. The file was large enough that we didn’t have time to go through the individual messages to see if they all worked. To be fair, if a few of the messages were corrupt in their file we wouldn’t have known it.
They also gave us a license key to export the repaired PST file and we installed it but didn’t use it since we didn’t have a corrupt PST file to repair or export. Stellar Phoenix supplied us with a corrupt PST file for this review at our request but when we opened it in Outlook 2013, before using their repair tool, it seemed just fine with no signs of corruption. If you’ve ever had a problem with your Outlook email not loading due to some sort of corruption then you’ve probably come across this tool in your search results. Today we’re reviewing the Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair tool which is used to repair corrupt Microsoft Outlook PST files.