Sep 29, 2016

Solved: “Inbox Repair Tool is Not Responding”

With faster and efficient email experience, MS Outlook is widely used as an email client for desktop users. Its entire file system relies on Personal Storage Table (PST) file. PST is the file format that Outlook uses to store all components such as Contacts, Calendar, Journals, and Notes including emails. After you set up your account, Outlook automatically creates the PST file and associates it with the created account. 

The PST file can be protected by a password to prevent from unauthorised access. But, you should be aware of the size limit in Personal Storage Folder (PST). After a span of a time interval, it becomes over-sized due to the execution of daily activities such as sending and receiving emails, etc. With the growing size of PST files, Outlook becomes slower. This increases the chances of damage to PST files. In case, any problem is encountered with Outlook PST file then, Inbox Repair Tool (ScanPST.exe) is recommended as a first-aid.

Though it is a free built-in Microsoft Outlook utility, yet it fails to respond several times. Some of its well-known issues are mentioned below:

Reason 1: Content of ScanPST.exe is emptied by an unknown virus or bug.
Reason 2: Severely damaged PST file. 
Reason 3: Unable to Repair when PST file is above 2GB.
Reason 4: Cannot Repair password protected file.
Reason 5: ScanPST.exe is not able to repair password protected corrupt PST file.

Limitations of the ‘Inbox Repair Tool’ (ScanPST.exe):

ScanPST.exe is an already built-in tool with MS Outlook package and helps fix minor outlook errors. This utility scans the corrupt Outlook PST file by re-building damaged portions.

In the case of minor errors or bugs, this software works well but fails to work on severely damaged .pst file due to virus attack, large file size, power outrage, or clash with firewall settings.
In this context, it reports the error message: “Inbox Repair Tool is Not Responding


After receiving this error, if we try to find its root causes, then it shows the following multiple reasons:
  •          Issues with the size of PST file.
  •         Severe corruption of PST files due to virus attack.
  •         Faulty Installation of Scantpst.exe tool.
  •        The File header is damaged.


The Bottom Line:


The built-in inbox repair tool is useful when the corruption level is minor, and the file size is less than 2GB. However, when it comes to severe corruption or large file size, scanpst.exe refuses to run and then hangs in the intermediate phase. Therefore, utilising a third-party software would serve as a better alternative as it would easily fix severely damaged large PST database file without any data loss.

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