How Outlook Stores Your Data
By: Jason Perry
Outlook is basically a flat-file database. As you create new e-mails, or as new e-mails are received, or when you create and save a new item in an Outlook folder, Outlook adds the new item to the location identified as the primary store. The exact location depends on how you configured Outlook when it was installed on your computer. Usually, your Personal Folders file (username.pst for example) is stored on your local computer in your ‘My Documents’ folder.
If you are not connected to an Microsoft Exchange Server, your e-mails, calendar, and other items are delivered to and stored locally in a personal folder (.pst) file. The letters pst stand for Personal Storage Table. The following files are commonly referenced by the various versions of Outlook.
Outlook data files (.pst)
drive:Documents and SettingsLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
Offline Folders file (.ost)
drive:Documents and Settings< username >Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
Personal Address Book (.pab)
drive:Documents and Settings< username >Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
Offline Address Books (.oab)
drive:Documents and Settings< username >Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
Outlook contacts nicknames (.nk2)
drive:Documents and Settings< username >Application DataMicrosoftOutlook
Recovering Outlooks PST, OST and other such data from laptops and computers which have become inaccessible, had failed hard drive, or has corrupted data, requires training and sophisticated equipment to rebuild and restore good, usable data. ADR Data Recovery has been in the hard drive data recovery business for over 12 years and successfully recovers critical data from laptops, computers, servers, and RAID servers every day.
About the Author
Jason Perry
ADR Data Recovery is available to evaluate the damage and potentially recover your lost data. For more information on ADR Data Recovery's Computer Forensics service, visit http://www.computerforensicsassociates.com