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Fixed: The Path Specified for the file Outlook.PST is Not Valid


While working with Microsoft Outlook, you may have encountered lot of errors message related to .PST file, and possibly you may have successfully resolved these issues by using manual procedures or any third party tool. However, unluckily, the manual solutions do not always fix every error related to Outlook PST file. 

In the same context, last week I received a very uncommon PST file error, whenever I tried to open my Outlook. And that error was-       
              
The path specified for the file D:\Alex.pst is not valid

You may also encounter other messages on your screen, but the procedure to resolve these errors are quite often same. Few other pop up error messages like-

  •    Outlook.pst is not a valid pst file
  •    Not a valid .pst
  •    This .pst file is not a valid personal folders file
  •    The .pst is not an Outlook data file (.pst)
However, I was able to locate the PST file manually but my Outlook 2010 could not locate the right path of the PST file. I asked this question on Microsoft Outlook forum (as I couldn’t get any guaranteed solution) and I found that the issue is not always related with PST file but sometime you have to manually select the PST file on your system where your Outlook client is installed. So if your PST file is not corrupt, you should try the manual methods first.

In case if you’re getting the specified PST path not valid error, you typed new path for PST, and one or more folders in the path you specified does not exist. To resolve the issue, either you should specify a path that contains an existing folder or create the folder with Browse before continuing with the Windows Messaging Setup Wizard.

Now copy your PST file to another location and select this PST file by opening your Outlook. Navigate to File -> Open -> Open Outlook Data File and browse the location of PST file. This is the most appropriate method to resolve this error. However, import & export option is not recommended for selecting the PST file. 

Alternatively, you can also create a new profile in Outlook and assign the PST file to this profile. Creating a new profile usually fix lot of problems. So you may also give this solution a try. But never upgrade your Outlook version that has a problem. 

So these are two common methods to fix the error. However, I’ll not suggest you to delete the PST, rather than you can repair PST file using third party tool if the issue is not resolved by following the above methods. Of course ScanPST.exe is also an option to resolve PST file issue but it didn’t work for me so I can’t recommend you this utility. In my case the wrong PST path was not the main cause behind the error but the damaged PST file prompted error messages on screen.

So I tried Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST repair tool (recommended by a MVP) to fix the PST file issue. It did the job and fixed invalid PST errors without any data lost. However, it is always recommended to follow manual methods as well as ScanPST first before trying third party tool, but if nothing works for you and the issue is still persists; Stellar Outlook PST repair tool is the only way to resolve the error. You can download this PST repair utility by visiting the official website: http://www.stellaroutlooktools.com/scan/pst-repair.php

Once the PST file is error free, you can assign the newly created fresh PST file to Outlook profile. Don’t worry, you all data still retain in the PST file.

Thanks,

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