Trouble restoring a PST in Outlook

Started by Avis habilis, August 31, 2012, 10:10:07 AM

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Avis habilis

Not me, actually, but a friend of mine. She's trying to import an old PST back into her Outlook 2000 (on Vista), but she's caught in an ourobouros of error messages. When she tries to import a PST of any size, she gets:

QuoteThe messaging interface has returned an unknown error. If the problem persists, restart Outlook.

Research suggested trying to use the inbox repair tool on the PST, but when she does it gives this error message:

QuoteAn error occurred which caused the scan to be stopped. No changes have been made to the scanned file

The hell with it, she said, she'll create a new one. But when she tries to create a brand new PST, this error pops up:

Quoteoutlook could not open the file containing the folders used to send and receive e-mail messages, create appointments, and open the address book. please select from the options listed below.
1. create a new personal folders file,
2. open an existing personal folders file.

Trying to open the exiting file fails. Trying to create a new one leads back to "The messaging interface has returned an unknown error..." Closing Outlook, deleting the bogus PST & restarting Outlook doesn't help - Outlook acts as if the allegedly deleted file is still there.

She's already reinstalled Outlook to boot (no pun intended), plus tried using a third-party repair tool (Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair v4.5) to no avail. I'm all out of ideas. Anybody got any suggestions?

Edited To Add: Any chance upgrading to Outlook 2003 would help?

Oniya

Could there be something tucked away in a registry file that identifies what PSTs Outlook thinks it has?  I've always avoided Outlook myself, but I wouldn't put it past having a 'thing' that doesn't necessarily uninstall cleanly.
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Avis habilis