My hard drive crashed after having a lot of bad sectors all at once. Outlook.pst was one of the files affected evidently. I can't even find the file anymore. Does anyone know of anyway to find it or the emails it contained??

What did you do to the drive after the crash? Were you able to get the OS to boot? Did you run a Repair or a Reinstall of XP? If you reinstalled, did you do an over-the-top install, or a format and then install? "So won’t you give this man his wings What a shame To have to beg you to see We’re not all the same What a shame" - Shinedown

Please note message # 173227. That was the beginning of my problem. I never got the OS to boot. I did not try to repair or reinstall XP on the bad drive. I purchased a new drive and made that #3 (bad drive is #4) in boot order. I installed Windows on new drive so I could run my computer. I can see most files on C drive. But, I recall seeing outlook.pst as one of the files that would come up during the chkdsk that would automatically run at each boot up. It would "fix" the same files every time it would run. I tried running chkdsk /r on the dead drive after the new drive was installed. Now, I can't even run chkdsk to completion. It sticks at 28% completed and stares at me.

Did you follow OTH's advise and run a drive fitness test on the drive? You never replied after he posted his suggestion. If the drive is not accessible, then neither is the data. Follow OTH's advice by running a drive fitness test. If that's successful, and you can then access the data, then you will be able to copy the data from the old drive to another one. If you get to that point, I can tell you exactly how to configure Outlook with the old pst file. No point in going through that lengthy process until it's determined if you have access to the data or not. "So won’t you give this man his wings What a shame To have to beg you to see We’re not all the same What a shame" - Shinedown

I think your data is toast. CHKDSK probably found errors and tried to repair and failed. Also CHKDSK did not run to completion so the FAT's were not correctly updated.

You can get back your lost emails from destroyed .pst file using PST Repair tool.. Kernel for Outlook PST repair software will make this possible for you.. Just give it a try.

Ran something like a drive fitness test for my Seagate hard drive. Evidently it failed, but I am still able to read and copy most of my files when I reboot. However, I can't even locate my .pst file. It must have been terribly damaged to the point that it's not "listed". The repair software would be great, but it looks like you have to have a .pst file to point it toward. As I said, the .pst file can't be found with a search or otherwise. Know of any software that could find the bits and pieces that were once a .pst file? Thanks for all the advice.