saga of corrupt pst file

K's S had a corrupt pst file, not opening in Outlook. Googled and passed on the following gyan:

Techrepublic points to MS knowledgebase and says pst max filesize is 2 GB
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1052339.html (BTW, the link is correct - it is techrepublic.com.com....)

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q197315
also says the same thing,
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q296088
mentions that it affects

• Microsoft Outlook 2000 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Outlook 2002 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Outlook 98 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Outlook 97 Standard Edition

Googling for 5 GB pst file, found
"I'd suggest using Mozilla Thunderbird on Windows to do the conversion. It creates MBOX files, and it's free. I've used it to migrate 5 GB of PST files to mail.app for my wife and myself."
from comments at http://www.davidalison.com/2008/05/outlook-pst-files-and-mac-conversion.html

According to http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1401989&page=12 last line,
"server side .pst tools don't support .pst files larger than 2gb. "
So there may have been some corruption if the file has gone through such tools.

Some more possibilities are listed in the comments of:
http://weblogs.asp.net/bleroy/archive/2007/06/27/outlook-pst-file-repair-tool.aspx
which say

• Don't use scanpst for > 2 GB
• Try opening in outlook 2007 (maybe you are using an even later version?)
• Try OutlookFix http://www.cimaware.com/main/products/outlookfix.php
  

Since this is paid sw, you could try thunderbird first, and later export back to outlook if necessary.

Resolution: Trying the Thunderbird stunt also did not work, many folders had junk characters and so on. It turned out that the file had become corrupted while being copied to the laptop. S went back to office, copied it again, this time it worked fine.

repairing dialup networking in XP

M had a problem connecting to Reliance using the USB dongle. Googled the error message 'Error 6 The handle is invalid.' and found the solution was a bit of voodoo from http://forums.practicallynetworked.com/showthread.php?t=6781:

1. Remove Modem driver from the Device Manager.

- Right click My Computer and select Properties.

- Click on Hardware, Device Manager. Click on + sign by modem, right click and
uninstall modem.

2. Delete the dial up connections and remove 3rd party RAS related
program if any.

3. Run the attached file to install RArepair.exe, then run RArepair.exe to
reinstall RAS components. Reboot.

4. Reinstall Modem driver and the 3rd party dial up program if it is
required by your ISP.

5. Recreate the dial up connection and check if the problem is resolved.


The exe file is also available on the forum page.