What Tools Does Microsoft Provide to Recover Inbox Files and How to Use It?

Corruption or sudden deletion of files from Outlook is a major
problem to many users and business houses that uses Outlook client to
communicate with their client and customers. Therefore, Microsoft has
provided various free tools in Outlook for Exchange recovery which can
recover damaged or deleted Inbox files. There are primarily two tools
in Outlook, named Inbox Repair Tool or scanpst.exe and OST Integrity
Tool.The most important tool Microsoft provided along with Outlook is
the Inbox Repair Tool or scanpst.exe which can restore damaged PST
file. The Inbox Repair Tool is a hidden file in Windows computers and
you need to use the search or find function (depending on the
operating system you have) to find this hidden tool. Inbox Repair Tool
is primarily designed to help repair problems associated with the
Personal Folder or.pst file in Outlook.The Inbox Repair Tool is
effective in the process of Exchange recovery only to a certain
extent; it is not able to retrieve data from a badly damaged or
oversized .pst file from the server. However, it is still an effective
first step everyone should always consider if any damage occurs to the
PST file. As the scanpst.exe is a hidden tool which the user need to
search using the 'search' or 'find' option in the start menu. In the
search box type scanpst.exe and after a few moments the Inbox Repair
Tool will appear on your computer screen. However, you need to enable
the 'Show hidden files and folders' option before you search for the
tool.When the search function displays the scanpst.exe tool you need
to double click on it to start the Exchange recovery process. After
this step browse and locate the .pst files that you want to repair and
after selecting all the files click on the 'Start' button. When the
scan is complete select the 'Make a backup of scanned file before
repair' checkbox. Click 'Repair' and if the repair process is
successful you will notice a 'Repair complete' message. However, if
the tool is unable to repair the file then you might require using a
backup of your file.If the recovery process is successful you will see
a 'Recovered Personal Folders' folder which will contain another
sub-folder named 'Lost and Found.' The 'Lost and Found' folder
contains all the items the recovery tool successfully extracted. You
need to create a new .pst file to drag all the items from the 'Lost
and Found' sub-folder and then delete both 'Recovered Personal
Folders' and 'Lost and Found' folders. However, if there is no data in
the 'Recovered Personal Folders' then you will have to take the help
of external third party softwares.The next most important free tool
provided by Microsoft along with Outlook is the 'OST Integrity Tool'
which helps in repairing OST (Offline Folder File). Before starting
the 'OST Integrity Tool' you need to close Outlook client. After this
you need to click on 'Start' and then click on 'Run' and in the box
type the following command:Drive:\Program Files\Common
Files\System\Mapi\LocaleID\scanost.exeWhen the 'OST Integrity Tool'
opens you need to click on 'OK' and then click on either 'Scan all
folders' or 'Choose folder to scan.' If you choose to scan all folders
the repair process will consume a lot of time. Select the 'Repair
errors' check box and then click 'Begin Scan.' If any data is
retrieved it will appear in the 'Deleted Items' folder in Outlook with
the subject 'OST Integrity Check.'If both this tool fails in
recovering your important files you can always consider using third
party recovery software like "Advanced Exchange Recovery" which can
recover even badly damaged .pst and .ost files.Product can be found at
http://www.exchange-recovery.com/