Convert OST to PST in the event of Exchange Mailbox Deletion

Offline folder files or the OST files are considered as the replicas of Server-based folders of your Exchange Mailbox. What will happen if your mailbox gets deleted from the Server? Obviously all your mailbox data is gone but there is still something left- it’s your OST. Now the issue that arises is how can you access your OST file?

If in case you have not altered your Original MS Exchange profile, then you still have the chance to access your MS Exchange client (MS Outlook) offline with your older OST. This way you can recover your data by saving your messages saved in OST to PST.

In case your older Exchange profile is deleted or altered (created a new or different mailbox) then the data in the OST is lost. In a broad scenario, if you have altered your Exchange profile to a point to where you have created a new mailbox, then the information that was stored in the OST file has been lost forever.

OST is devised with a strict security, owing to which, Windows NT authentication cannot be used to work offline. Therefore, to access the OST data you need to prove that you have the authentication to log onto the server-based Exchange mailbox before you get the access to OST. In order to do so, Exchange Server creates an encrypted “cookie” from your mailbox’s unique entry ID while you successfully log on to the Exchange Server computer. This cookie so created is stored in your Exchange Server profile and your profile saves this key for OST. Pertaining to this fact, OST checks the existence of this key each time you try to access the OST file.

When you alter or modify your profile or try to connect with a new mailbox or work on the present profile but on new network, then MS Exchange replaces this key with a new value from the mailbox that was created. And this all results in inaccessibility of data that was contained in the OST that was created with the previous mailbox.

What would you do, if you realize that you just lost some very important data due to alteration of your mailbox? Now that you have lost the access of your OST file all you can do is search for a third party convert ost tool as this is the only way to access your OST data. Convert OST tools are devised to convert the data saved in OST file to PST file format so that the inaccessible data in OST becomes accessible again with MS Outlook PST file.

Convert OST tool is capable of recovering email messages, folders, tasks, meeting request, posts, appointments, task requests, journals, notes etc. Additionally, the software can recover email properties such as subject, To, From, Cc, BCc and Date. In case of doubts about the efficiency of the software, you can always avail the free evaluation version of the convert OST tool and check its accuracy for your OST file. The free version will let you check the extent to which you can convert the data from OST to PST.