Member Avatar for andantesash

I reformatted my brothers computer for him as it was running very slow and had lots of malware etc.

He didn't tell me at the time to backup his emails, so I reformatted it and installed Windows 7 on it again.

Is there any programs out there that can recover these emails in outlook for me?

Or is there any other suggestions as he had some important files in it.

Thanks

  • 5 Contributors
  • 4 Replies
  • 122 Views
  • 1 Week Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by jet1337

Dani AI

Generated

A few practical next steps and caveats that build on the suggestions from , , , and .

Stop using the machine now. Continued booting, installing or browsing from the reformatted disk will overwrite sectors and reduce the chance of recovering mail. Prefer working from a separate system or booting a rescue USB so no further writes happen to the affected drive.

Recommended workflow (high level):

  1. Remove or take an image of the drive before scanning. Create a sector-by-sector image to a different physical disk (tools exist to make reliable images; this protects the original and gives a safe target for multiple recovery attempts).
  2. Run recovery scans against the image, not the live disk. Look specifically for mail-store files and mail folders, then extract any findings to another drive.
  3. If account settings used a server-side protocol (IMAP/Exchange) check the server/webmail first — those copies often remain untouched.
  4. If recoverable files are found, import them into a clean mail profile or use a mail-viewer/conversion utility to extract messages to standard files before attempting a full restore.

What to expect: Success depends on how much new data the Windows 7 install wrote to the partition. A quick format leaves remnants, but any later writes (including the OS install) can have overwritten critical parts of mailbox files. If recovery software finds fragments, partial message extraction is often possible even when full mailbox files are corrupted.

If unfamiliar with disk imaging or deep recovery, consider a reputable professional recovery service. For background on Outlook data-file types and safe handling, see Microsoft’s guidance on Outlook data files and consider imaging tools documentation before proceeding: and Clonezilla (imaging tools).

Recommended Answers

All 4 Replies

Member Avatar for ian_422

Outlook stores all your information in a file called outlook.pst that's located inside the users profile (ie C:\Documents and Settings\Username\) you can use a program like Ontrack Easy Recovery to scan the drive for files deleted in the format and you MIGHT find it

Member Avatar for Biker920

Try this, go to your brothers internet provider web site and log on to the e-mail storage. His regular e-mail log on and pass word should get him access all e-mails up to limits of storage capacity should be there. trash and all. Later---

Member Avatar for GordonJ.

Uh....Many recovery tool can do this. I used a free one, Data Recovery Wizard Free edition can free recover formatted partition, including email. And easy recovery is also good. Both great!

Member Avatar for jet1337

Data Recovery Wizard is good.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.