Stellar Has Successfully Recovered Lost MS Outlook Files from Formatted Hard Drive

A reputed leading Pvt. Ltd. is a company that operates as a financial and technology service businesses for various sectors such as aviation, power generation, energy management, capital, healthcare, oil and gas, transportation, renewable energy, etc. across the Indian sub-continent.

The Client used a Windows laptop with 320GB and 2.5 inches Hitachi hard disk (model number:  HTS725032A7E630) to store all its data. A hard disk with storage capacity as high as this ensured that the company could save a large amount of its data. Moreover, the hard disk brand guaranteed that the disk would last long and that all the data including the Windows Outlook PST file was saved in an exceedingly safe and secure environment.

Client's Administrative Challenge

The client used MS Outlook as the desktop email client for business communication. Thus, all the data items such as emails, contacts, calendars, calendars, etc. were stored in a PST file. Anytime the data was needed, the database administrator (DBA) could use the PST file to access all emails and other data items stored in it.

One day, the client accidentally formatted the hard disk drives in the encrypted mode. This caused loss of all data including all the items in the Outlook PST file. This brought a huge setback.

The administrator was worried because of the loss of MS Outlook data. Recovering the 40GB sized PST file that was present before the HDD was formatted, became the need of the hour.

STELLAR to the rescue

As the operating system had also been uninstalled, the DBA installed the Windows OS on the hard disk and performed the encryption. However, he was not able to recover the lost data from the PST file that was 40GB in size. So, he contacted the Service Center of Stellar Data Recovery at Pune, the nearest branch.

After being approached by the DBA of the client company, our representative from the branch listened to the issue. The client expressed a quick and fast solution to the issue that he was facing, i.e. he wanted the lost PST file with the complete data intact.

One of our data recovery experts inspected the hard drive and came to a conclusion. He derived a conclusion that the hard disk had been formatted. This was done in the encrypted mode. Thereafter, the DBA had installed Windows and encrypted the hard disk.

QUITE A REMARKABLE RECOVERY

In this case, the technical experts at the Pune branch scanned the hard disk with a software only to see that PST file was not present.
Thus, the following steps were followed by the expert:

• First and foremost, the HDD was encrypted with MacAfee and then decrypted with the .xml file that was provided by the client.
• Next, the hard disk drive was scanned using a software application, but the PST file could not be found.
• Then, a search was conducted to locate the Outlook PST file. With this, the header was found, which helped in the manual creation of the PST file.
• With all the headers of the PST file that were found, the PST files were manually created with each found header.
• In this process of manual creation of PST file with found headers, one header was such that the entire PST file which the client mentioned in MAF, was created.   

Once done, the client was informed about it through email. As a response to the email, the administrator himself came to the branch and verified the data.  He was quite happy to receive the wholly recovered PST file with complete data.