At a point of time when your offline store (.OST file) contains corrupt information or is damaged
, you are restricted to synchronize your folders until you delete the .OST file. This means you might lose any changes made while you were offline. In order to resolve the problem, Microsoft offers MS Office 2000 Service Release 1/1a (SR-1/SR-1a).
This fix for the corrupt information in OST file comprises of better .OST fidelity so that you are unlikely to lose any changes made when you were offline. Mentioned below are improvements that have been made to offline store synchronization:
* Improved synchronization so that Outlook doesnt halt synchronizing messages with server each time it encounters one bad message. This issue is fixed by transferring the message to a Corrupted Items folder which does not synchronize with the server.
* Restricting the synchronization of folders known to be not existing on the server, which can be the IPM sub-tree, the ~MAPISP (Internal), and the Corrupted Items folders.
* Abstract the logging code from the replication context structure into a replication log structure in order to allow the OST Integrity Check Tool for Outlook 2000 and the synchronization code to share the same log credentials.
* Improved code for the OST Integrity Check Tool for Outlook 2000 that runs when the tool is activated.
The OST Integrity Check Tool for Outlook 2000 scans the offline folder file on your local computer and the folder file on Microsoft Exchange Server computer and compares the items and folders in each file. If the tool comes across any differences between the files, it will try to reconcile them. This fix is suggested for those who are experiencing synchronization errors or offline folder file data integrity problems. The tool records all the differences in the scan log so that even the user can check the discrepancies it found and resolved. This scan log also identifies situations that the tool was not able to correct and that needs to be fixed manually.
The Inbox Repair Tool (Scanpst.exe) is another tool that will help you in diagnosing the cause and repairing errors in your .OST file. However, the Inbox Repair Tool scans only the .OST file and ensures that the file structure is preserved. It does not scan your mailbox on Microsoft Exchange Server.
Using an OST to PST Converter is a nice option to get your vital data back without any damage caused to the structure of file. These tools perform a read-only scan and recover data easily without disturbing or losing the data integrity of the OST file. Since these OST to PST converter tools are developed specially to deal with corruption issues of offline store files therefore, it assures of accurate repair and recovery of important data.