The feature of archive in MS Outlook .PST file allows user to divide your email messages into fractions of PSTs according to your personal need. Entire emails in the fragmented PST files are manageable and accessible through Outlook just like other email items. The concept of an Archive PST is practically feasible, especially for those who regularly deal with large number of email items and want to streamline different categories of emails.

Archive PST may be considered as one of the most useful feature of the MS Outlook, but one cannot deny from the possibly of corruption that may get damaged or corrupt at one or other point of time. Like any other application, an archive PST file is prone to corruption because of which a default PST can get corrupt. Here, your initial course of action should be running Outlook’s in-built Inbox Repair Tool. If that fails to recover PST, you can then opt for restoring a good backup or using PST Recovery tool.

Often at times, it happens where user stores an archive PST file on network drive and that file gets corrupted. You may fall in need to archive the Outlook PST file and store the resultant file on a network drive. Further, you transfer the archive.pst on your computer. Although, it gets transferred, but the trouble arises when you open the same archive.PST file in Outlook.

You go to File  Open  Outlook Data File, but the file could not be opened and the following error message pops up:

"The file drive_letter:archive.pst is not a personal folders file."

Root Cause

The above-mentioned error message clearly indicates that Outlook is incapable to read the archive.pst file. The consequent effect is that the personal storage folder structure is damaged and Outlook PST is not supported over any network link. The PSTs are designed for local message store. Now the network links use network-access-driven methods, which is contrary to file-access-driven methods used by PST. If the network traffic is not apt, possibilities are that the file may catch errors. Hence, an archive.pst may catch corruption if saved on a network drive.

Solution

Get an instant help, use Outlook Inbox Repair Tool (Scanpst.exe) to repair your damaged

archive.pst. Follow these steps to run the tool:

Close the Outlook application if open

Scanpst.exe is a hidden file. So, make sure that the ‘Show hidden files and folders’ setting is enabled in the folder options

Click Start  Search or Find and type ‘Scanpst.exe’ in the Search box.

Open the file with double-click and browse to the location of your damaged archive.pst

Click ‘Start’, which starts the recovery process

Try to open the file in question again. The corruption problem should not exist.

Although, it is a default tool and is available instantly, but you cannot entirely dependent on it as it may not work ideally under major corruption issue. In this situation, using professional PST recovery tool is an ultimate solution. Kernel for PST Repair is one such tool that effectively repairs the damaged, broken and corrupt archive.PST file and successfully recovers all email data from it. This PST recovery tool enables user to get immediate accessibility to the mails and related items. You can test the functionality of Kernel for PST Repair tool as it also comes with free demo version.