Recover from an Outlook Mailpocalypse

A few weeks ago, a buddy of mine was struck down by the worst calamity imaginable. No, his local Cold Stone Creamery didn't close. Rather, his Outlook PST file got corrupted, meaning he couldn't access his e-mail. Any of it.

As you know, losing an e-mail store -- which contains years of contact information, daily business decisions, and various tasks and to-dos -- is a problem of apocalyptic proportions. A mailpocalypse, as it were.

Luckily, in my buddy's case, the fix was simple: I pointed him to the Inbox Repair Tool, found at C:Program FilesCommon FilesSystemMapi1033NT if you have Office 2003 or C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice12 if you have Office 2007.

You can find additional tips for repairing broken Outlook mail databases at Help Desk Geek. But beware: Some of the advice here is a bit alarmist and outdated. Method 2 in particular, which chats about PST files getting corrupted when they exceed 2GB, hasn't been true since before Office 2003. And older versions of Office have long been patched to prevent a Mailpocalypse from striking users that hit the 2GB limit. The other tips here are valid, though, so this is a good place to look for salvation if the unimaginable ever happens.