Help, I deleted some files off of my external HD and now missing outlook folders

So my external HD was getting full and it had all of these old backups on it, I went to delete some and then outlook was not working properly. I 1st wasn't able to even open outlook, but then it prompted me to select some files (I really don't know what I did here) and then it opened. When it opened all of my sub folders were gone and all of my emails that are older than 2 weeks are gone as well.

I thought that the external HD was just for backups, I had no idea that it was used for outlook as well. The files that were deleted were labeled "Back up set" so I thought that it was just an old back up. The file was around 45 gb, there were 2 other back up sets that totaled about 300 gb, I thought that I would be safe deleting the smaller one and go from there but I was not.

I use file scavenger to recover the files, but I don't know what I am doing with these files. The files that I need are not all in 1 convient folder labeled "Back up Set".

I had tons of info that was lost and I was hoping that someone here would be able to help me get this back together. I would just hate to have just lost all of that info...

Do you have any *.pst files?

Yes I do. I tried opening outlook and went to file, then open, then selected one of the recovered pst files and it said that this file is not a personal folder. I don't know why it didn't work, the file extension was .pst.

Out of the 30 or so pst files that were recovered only one worked and it didn't recover any data.

On a side note there is something else wrong with my computer since the deleted files, my screen sort of "flashes" and stops my typing and everything freezes for a half a sec. This is quite annoying.

**Edit**
I attached the files that were saved.

Also I keep getting this message when exiting Word

Replacement said:

Yes I do. I tried opening outlook and went to file, then open, then selected one of the recovered pst files and it said that this file is not a personal folder. I don't know why it didn't work, the file extension was .pst.

Out of the 30 or so pst files that were recovered only one worked and it didn't recover any data.

On a side note there is something else wrong with my computer since the deleted files, my screen sort of "flashes" and stops my typing and everything freezes for a half a sec. This is quite annoying.

**Edit**
I attached the files that were saved.

Also I keep getting this message when exiting Word

Click to expand...

I'm guessing here that you had AUTOARCHIVE set to ON and it was auto-archiving all messages older than 2 weeks old. The rest I'm not sure about.

I personally don't use that feature because I do annual archives, manually.

Also, before you declare defeat, run SCANPST on all the recovered files. You may be able to recover some data.

Good luck, and I mean, good luck. Outlook is very complex and if I hadn't already been using it for years as an employee, I wouldn't be using at home, even accounting for the differences between an Exchange server and an ISP for my email.

I gave up on recovering the pst files. This flashing issue is driving me nuts though.


I uninstall and reinstall office, still having the flashing issue.
I'm not sure if I did the uninstall correctly. I used that program Revo uninstaller and it said that windows was uninstalled. Then I ran CCleaner and restarted the computer. I didn't see the program on the computer anywhere then I reinstalled it. The reason I'm not sure if it was completely uninstalled is because when I opened outlook after the reinstall it already had my email accounts set up on it.


Any other ideas on what it could be.