microsoft outlook, can't access

[little meg]

Hope someone can help me please.
when I try to open my emails Microsoft Outlook state:

Outlook could not open the file containing the folders used to send and receive email messages, create appointments and open address book.
Please select from the options listed below.
 - create new personal folder file
 - open an existing personal folder file

click 'OK' or 'Cancel'

I have no idea what so ever as what they refer to, never come across this before and am not too brilliant with computers
What folders do they refer to and what should I do?

Any advice welcome and I will try to check this thread regularly seeing as I won't be able to access notification of it

Margaret

[Nick29]

The "Folders" refer to the mail inbox, outbox, sent items, etc.

Before you do anything else, make sure that you are logged into Windows under the name that you always use, if there's more than one login account set.

If you are, then it looks like the datatbase where Outlook keeps all its data has become corrupted.  If that's the case, you may be able to retrieve an archive, if one has been created, but this really needs to be done "hands on" by a computer-savvy person 

[cookiecrisp]

Hi Margaret

A couple of things to try.

check that you have full on your outlook.pst file.  (Sometimes they get changed for no apparent reason, or maybe installing updates or something might do it) Depending on what version of windows you are using in xp it's in something like could be in Documents and Settings\user...\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook. In vista it's in c:\users\"your name"\app data\local\microsoft\outlook

If you can't see the file, open my computer, click tools, folder options, select the view tab, scroll down and make sure "show hidden files and folders" is selected.

When you have found the outlook.pst file, right click it, select properties, then the security tab, then make sure that your name  has full access rights. tick all boxes in the allow column.


2nd thing that could be causing the problem is that outlook 2000 and older versions don't like the outlook.pst file to be larger than 2gb. You can check the size by right clicking the file and selecting properties. I have just been reading about how to deal with this, and it looks a bit complicated for me. If you google exactly the error message you are getting (as I just did) there are several helpful articles. Just don't download any software that claims it will fix it!

Debbie.

[little meg]

Hi Nick and Debbie,
I will have a play and see what I can do.
Thanks for the information - fingers crossed.

Margaret

[little meg]

found all the places I was supposed to go and did all the bits I was supposed to do, but sadly no joy.
Still same problem, 

Thankyou for your advice,

Margaret