I recently encountered the following error message when starting Outlook 2013 – “Your Outlook Data File cannot be configured” and it was pointing to my “.ost” file. I suspect an Outlook file became corrupt as a result of a momentary power interruption while Outlook was running on my computer. Wasn’t sure what to do, so I ran the Microsoft Outlook Inbox Repair Tool (Scanpst.exe) once on the suspected “.ost” file. It found errors, so I selected the repair option. This did not resolve the issue. Not knowing what else to do, I contracted with a technical person to get my Outlook back up and running. Needless to say it took him many hours to get my Outlook back up and operational.
I recently found out that you may need to run this Scanpst.exe repair tool several times before all errors are fixed. Don’t know if I had run this tool several time until it said no error were found. Do you think this would have resolved my Outlook problem?
I also came across a Microsoft article about repairing Outlook Data Files (.pst and .ost). It talks about re-creating an offline Outlook Data File (.ost). It basically says to close Outlook and then delete the “.ost” file and the next time Outlook starts, it will create an “.ost” file. Is this accurate? If I have two different “.ost” files, could I have deleted both and they would have both been created the next time I started Outlook? Do you think this could have also resolved my Outlook problem?
I recently found out that you may need to run this Scanpst.exe repair tool several times before all errors are fixed. Don’t know if I had run this tool several time until it said no error were found. Do you think this would have resolved my Outlook problem?
I also came across a Microsoft article about repairing Outlook Data Files (.pst and .ost). It talks about re-creating an offline Outlook Data File (.ost). It basically says to close Outlook and then delete the “.ost” file and the next time Outlook starts, it will create an “.ost” file. Is this accurate? If I have two different “.ost” files, could I have deleted both and they would have both been created the next time I started Outlook? Do you think this could have also resolved my Outlook problem?