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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