Corrupted .pst file in MS Outlook
Due to needing the search function in Outlook I permitted my .pst Outlook Folder to grow impossibly huge (about 2.5gb actually). I kept backing it up across my LAN to the server (and to tape) and had great faith that when the inevitable happened that I would be able to recover most of that email. Unfortunately that's not the way it worked out. Once directed to an old .pst file, Outlook now creates huge numbers of "recovered" folders and you actually end up with about 25% of the emails (complete with attachments) that were in that original huge .pst file.
With hindsight, one should have expected something similar and gone for data-basing via Forkeeps (which is about the only program that I'm aware of that can cope with Outlook (amongst others). The only backup that comes with Outlook is an internal archiving function that works on date cut-offs (i.e. "archive all before 30 Jun 02") - and that is hived off to another appropriately named archive .pst file.
Has anyone come up against this before and evolved a recovery methodology? I emphasize that before my XP recently dropped dead and needed restoration, I was having zilch email problems at all. In fact that should have alerted me.