Cannot Open .pst File

[dpanattoni]

I have archived my system's e-mail by month onto CDs. After I've burned the pst file to a CD, I am unable to open it from within Outlook. I get the error:

"Properties for this information service must be defined prior to use."

I tried copying the file from the CD back onto the PC and unchecking the read-only attribute, but I still get the same error.

Prior to burning to the CD, I was able to successfully read these .pst files.

Does anybody have an idea?

 

[kevdude]

When you burn to a CD, the information is then read-only on the CD ROM. In order to read this stuff again, you have to copy it back to your hard drive, set the read only to off, in properties, and then you can read things again. For some reason, Outlook requires the .pst to be writable even though you're not changing things.

 

[dpanattoni]

I am getting the error message even from the copied file on the system. The copied file has already been changed so that it is no longer read-only.

 

[dpanattoni]

I have resolved this problem. I ran scanpst.exe on the file and determined that the file was corrupted. After scanpst.exe repaired the errors, I was able to successfully open the file.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Tricky100]

Where you able to open the files from CD? i still cant open them from the CD, but they work fine from the hard drive.. Does the CD have to be writeable? This is getting quite urgent for us as we are now reaching the 16gb limit on our Exchange 5.5 server..

 

[dpanattoni]

I haven't tried it from the CD. The scanpst.exe file repaired a .pst file that came from a CD but was sitting on a HD. From the multiple posts that I've read, it seems that Outlook, for some reason, wants write permission on the .pst file that it is trying to open, therefore, I doubt that reading from the CD will work. Although I haven't proven this theory, as my problems were due to a corrupted file that was able to be repaired.

 

[cmeagan656]

Tricky100,

Read kevdude's post in this thread. You can't read it from the CD.

Cheers.

 

[zbnet]

The reasons for why a PST file has to be writable are give in KB269520 (Outlook 2000). There is an almost identicle artile citing Outlook 2002 (KB292061).