Outlook - unable see inbox contents

If the PST repair sugggestions above do not help you, you might try "recognize and repair" found under the HELP tab in Outlook.  Try to make sure all other office programs are closed at that time.

If you're desperate to get to those messages, and the other ideas don't work for you, you could always install Thunderbird and import the messages.  This worked for me when I had a corrupt PST and the other methods failed to work for me.

Statiing the obvious... I'd make a copy of my PST before I ran any repair attempts on it.
(Just in case it gets damaged worse)

I support the ThunderBird idea.  

I've also had issues with PST's getting trashed when roaming users went from
different versions of Outlook but I did not know about scanpst.exe.

A big pain.  Good luck.

Maybe a dumb question, but when you reverted to the "old" outlook, did you remember to re-install all the service packs?  This might help:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304863/en-us

This is a MUST read:  http://ask-leo.com/the_contents_of_my_inbox_disappeared_can_i_recover.html

Especially this part:  Another very easy trap to fall into that might cause messages "disappear" is to simply have an improper view applied. Both Outlook and Outlook Express have the ability to show only messages matching certain criteria. For example "show only unread messages" is a common setting; once you read the message it "disappears". Applying a different view that doesn't restrict which messages are shown causes the message to reappear. Check the View menu in either application (and the Arrange By sub menu if present) to see what your current settings are. If they're restrictive it's possible your mail is still there, just not in view.

Hi ,

Check this links

http://www.zdnetasia.com/insight/network/0,39044847,39048330,00.htm


http://www.mcse.ms/message2448927.html

cristrain,

We have not heard from you. Did any comment help you solve your problem? Do you have any more question? If an Expert helped you, please accept his/her answer above with an excellent or good grade.

Thanks, war1

I have just had a similar problem with a PST file in Outlook 2007, the problem was the location of the file on the system. Because I had it in the root of C vista needed to 'admin popup' everytime it wanted to write to the file and outlook couldn't handle the popup.
Solution was to move it to my user directory and suddenly it worked fine.
I hope that helps.

Hunter  -
very good questions/suggestion.
I have run into those problems before and by default when someone is missing email,
I check their views.  

I am 99.9% sure this is an issue with PST compatibility caused by either the different OSes or
different versions of OutLook.

leesowen -

I'll stay away from Vista as long as possible.

I am currently looking at removing Outlook from all desktops and requiring users to use WebMail
until I get all computers upgraded to XP Pro.  

FYI for anyone experiencing this problem.
When restoring the PST, had to change a registry setting relating to Outlook to put Outlook in
 "first run" status.