What to do when failed synchronization results in OST corruption in MS Outlook

Taking a practical situation, let us assume that you are working on MS Outlook 2000 in offline mode. You have to send some emails, which you have composed in the offline mode. You try to synchronize with the Exchange Server to send these mails. However, there are some problems because of which you are unable to send these emails.

You cannot even delete the OST file as then you would lose the important data that you created while in the offline mode.

Cause:

The most possible cause of such strange but very common problem is that the OST file has corrupted or is damaged. Because of this, you are unable to synchronize with the Exchange Server.

Resolution:

There are the following measures that you should take in such situations:

• Download and install hotfix: You should download and install a hotfix, Microsoft Office 2000 Service Release 1/1a (SR-1/SR-1a), recommended for Outlook 2000. With this upgrade, the synchronization process gets completed even after receiving a problem. The non-synchronized items get collected in the Corrupted Items folder.

• Run OST Integrity Check Tool: You should run the OST Integrity Check Tool for Outlook 2000 that scans the OST file for errors and repairs them, if any. It does this by comparing the OST file and the user mailbox on the Exchange Server. If it finds any dissimilarity between the two, it tries to correct these.

Now, if you are unable to synchronize with the Exchange Server properly then the use of third-party OST-PST conversion tools becomes very obvious. Such non-destructive tools repair the OST file and rescues the data by converting the orphaned OST file to an equivalent and usable PST file.

The most efficient third-party tool that converts OST to PST file is advanced OST to PST Converter, which works on MS Outlook 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002, and 2000. Compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000, this converts OST to PST by recovering various Outlook objects like emails (with attachments), journals, tasks, calendar items, distribution lists, contacts, etc. Also, this OST to PST converter preserves the formatting of the messages during the OST-PST conversion.