Restore Deleted Items from an Outlook PST-file

This guide will instruct you how to recover all your deleted messages since the last time you ran “Compact Now” on a PST-file.

When you haven’t closed and opened Outlook in between you’ll have the best results. If you have restarted Outlook in between the results are unpredictable.

If the items aren’t restored at the first attempt you could try again and delete more or other characters in the middle of the pst-file but it might result in the loss of an item and it is not a guarantee it will will work.

The best way is always to restore from backup; preventing is better then curing.

1. Locate the *.pst file and create a copy of it to work with (never mess around with original files!)
2. Open the *.pst file in a hexadecimal editor. (I use UltraEdit for this)
3. In the column on the right side overwrite character 7 to 13 with spaces. In the hexadecimal column (left column) block 7 to 13 will display 20 (hexadecimal value for a space)
4. Save the *.pst file
5. As you have now corrupted your pst file you need to run scanpst.exe to repair it
6. When scanpst has repaired your pst file open in it Outlook and look in the Deleted Items folder or in the original folder to locate your deleted items.

If you don’t see any of your items restored it might be impossible for scanpst.exe to retrieve them as of course scanpst.exe wasn’t designed for this trick. In those cases you could use a 3rd party recovery tool. One that has been very valuable to me with excellent results is Advanced Outlook Repair from DataNumen.You can download a trial to see what really is recoverable for your pst-file before purchasing. If you decide to order, use DNC-PUXB-HT to get a discount.