Lost All Emails

dbrookf

A friend of mine has lost all his emails including the .pst file. When he had an expert look at the computer, he was told that the only way to retrieve them was via the use of some specialist software which would cost over £100.

My question is: does anyone know how to do this cheaper or via another means?

Any help gratefully received!

espresso

Tell your friend to restore his lost emails from the backups that he saves regularly - he does make regular back ups doesn't he?

Margaret_Skinner

I highly doubt it .......

ehlo

Which operating system is your friend using?

If it is Vista or newer an automatic backup may exist. http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/howdoi/?p=145

dbrookf

Nope - he ain't backed up his computer (I know, I know!).

He is using Windows XP - is that any good for 'shadow copying'?

Trinitrotoluene

Are you sure that it isn't just that the PST has come unattached from Outlook?

JJ_Egan

Recuva or Restoration or one of the other free recovery softwares may find the files .

jje

dbrookf

Trinitrotoluene wrote: »

Are you sure that it isn't just that the PST has come unattached from Outlook?

Not too sure what that means, but the ''expert'' would have found .pst I think if it had been there somewhere??

JasX

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Recuva or Restoration or one of the other free recovery softwares may find the files .

jje

if its gone/deleted recuva is a free program they'll recover anything you can find with the £100 versions.

note your friend should not use the PC and certainly not install anything or download/copy to the hard drive or they risk overwriting the space where the deleted/missing file is which would make it completly unrecoverable.

best download recuva on a separate machine and run it from a USB drive

Trinitrotoluene

dbrookf wrote: »

Not too sure what that means, but the ''expert'' would have found .pst I think if it had been there somewhere??

It depends on whether you trust the expert.

Tell him on the PC to do the following:

Start and Search. Click all files and folders. Look in local hard drives and in "all or part of the file name" type in *.pst and click search.

See if this returns any results.

tronator

Trinitrotoluene wrote: »

Start and Search. Click all files and folders. Look in local hard drives and in "all or part of the file name" type in *.pst and click search.

See if this returns any results.

Don't forget to search in hidden folders too since "%userprofile%\local settings" is a hidden folder.