urgent need to access a document from 2003

Copper Contributor

I urgently need to access a document from 2003 which I received as an email attachment when I was using Outlook

 

I have found two backup .pst files, one called outlook.pst,   the other called archive.pst on CD.  But for some reason they wont copy. I get a plethora of arcane error messages, such as cyclic redundancy error??

I don't think I copied them while open but  I suppose there is achance I might have.

 

Do I stand any chance of opening these files or running scanpst please and does anyone know how?  I have tried in Windows xp, MacOS and Linux

3 Replies
can you save as and give the file a new name - its possible you have those file names already, and if Outlook is open it won't let you create a new one w/same name - if its closed its likely to over write the existing file.

No, I havent tried OPENING either of them as I didnt think I could open a pst file that is on a CD. I was tring to get them onto my computer so that I could open them or run scanpst.. Is that wrong? Should I simply be able to open Outlook and go to File - Open? Or go to File Explorer and OPEN either pst file with Outlook?

EDIT: I did try it and found that trying to open a working pst file that is on a CD-ROM (i.e. a file that cannot be changed) just causes outlook to crash in a welter of NOT RESPONDING error messages

it may not be compatible with newer outlook versions - you will only be able to open a pst file from within outlook - but if the file is stored on a cd, Copy the pst(s) to documents\ outlook files on the new computer - or somewhere convenient, but not in the appdata folder like it was on the old computer.
Then open from outlook 365 using File > Open & Export > Open outlook data file.

if you are unable to copy and paste the file you may need to investigate programs out there that will convert an old pst to the new pst format.