I can not open Microsoft Office Outlook 2003?

Question

Been using Outlook 2003 for nearly a year now, and i've got over 15,000 archived emails.

Today, when i start Outlook, it initializes, but after about 5 seconds, i get this error message: "Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Unable to open the outlook window. The set of folders could not be opened. The server is not available. Contact your administrator if this condition persists." When i click on the OK button, the program closes.

My internet connection is OK, and i am able to use IncrediMail, Outlook Express, and Mozilla Thunderbird. I have a DSL connection, home network. I am using a laptop computer with Microsoft XP Home. My Mcafee security center is running and up-to-date.

I tried windows system restore, but that didnt help.

I searched and found two .pst files in my Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook folder, and these are: Archive.pst (265kb) and Outlook.pst (3kb).

I badly need to HAVE my archived emails back. Will an Outlook reinstall delete my archived mails?

I did a scan of my Outlook.pst file, and the result says "The Inbox Repair Tool does not recognise the (Outlook.pst file.) No information can be recovered."

I guess my Outlook.pst file is corrupted? The current file size is too small to have all my emails and other data...

Is their a way to restore my old Outlook.pst file?

Answer 1

to save all your emails etc. make a copy of the Outlook.pst file. It should be a rather large file and contains contacts, folders, everything.

Once you have this copied to a different location you can reinstall Outlook, not sure if you want to start Outlook once (to create the default blank Outlook.pst file, then replace it with yours, which is what I would do since I can never remember where Outlook puts things in each version.

Too many computers and versions, not enough brain cells.