Using Hex Editor To Perform Email Recovery

Have you ever come across a situation when you deleted an important email accidentally or a virus attack has resulted in data loss? If you believe that retrieving those important emails is not possible, then don’t get disheartened, you can easily recover your deleted, damaged or inaccessible emails. As we all know the fact, that emails have become an integral part of our business lives and play a vital role in a significant amount of work that is carried out at office. There are significant files and photos attached to them, which are vital and if in case they get deleted, this might result in severe loss. Email data becomes even more important if you are directly dealing with your clients and carrying out business deals through them.

Outlook PST file is the only copy of your emails, notes, contacts, calendars, archives, appointments, etc when you are not accessing Exchange Server account. Hence, email recovery is an important topic to be considered, if user deletes these useful items accidentally or intentionally. On the other hand, if Outlook is configured to utilize an Exchange account, administrator has the power to access all those deleted emails. Even in situations when users purge the emails, the administrator side can recover them through Exchange journaling and archiving. But the situation becomes dicey in case user is working on an account such as POP3. If the user deletes the PST email items permanently using Shift + Delete key or empties the Deleted Items folder, the solutions can be different; yet in that case too email recovery is possible.

Deleted items recovery from Outlook PST is possible. At times, when you don’t have an updated backup to perform email recovery, a hex editor might work. These programs are usually available as freeware and allow you to manipulate the binary computer files and edit the raw file contents. Subsequently, you can easily use these tools to make required changes in any file. Technique of recovering deleted PST items is started using Hex editor to corrupt the file and later repair it. But before, you do it, ensure that you have a backup file for the same. If you have already compacted the PST and if the deleted item space has been occupied, then the process might fail. In order to perform email recovery using hex editor, follow the steps given below:

1. Open the PST file with a hex editor.

2. Change the first eight bits of file ‘00’ etc.

3. Launch Outlook to view the PST file. Outlook will no longer recognize the file and state it as corrupt.

4. Access Scanpst.exe file to start Inbox Repair Tool and repair corrupt PST file.

5. When you repair the corrupt PST, Scanpst.exe tool will recreate all the pointers and hence, the email items that you deleted get restored to their original location.

If you are not comfortable with this idea, then the only other option left is to use a third party Email Recovery software to recover deleted PST items. There are huge range of email recovery utilities developed to scan affected PST to restore deleted emails, notes, calendars and other items. Such tools enable you to perform recovery without taking too much of time. You can try out demo version to experience how effective the selected tool is for you. An email recovery tool can be installed on any version of Windows operating system to recover deleted emails.

Are You Planning To Migrate From Lotus Notes to Outlook 2007?

With rising email appeal within business environment and an array of dedicated email servers, market is all set for users to get the best of email platform. The bet is on and is high to grab as much of the market as possible. In the meantime, if you or your organization has decided to convert Lotus Notes to Outlook/Exchange Server, then it’s necessary to have proper guidance prior to conversion.

Changing presence of software is always tedious. If you are among those who is mulling over migration from Lotus Notes to Outlook/Exchange 2007, moving software would be a real troublesome job for you. Because concerns and confusions arise with backups, data integrity, and the learning curve of new software. You need first to avoid email migration blues. Few of the points that you should ALWAYS keep in mind during migration scenario are mentioned below:

Always Back Up Your Data: Backing up the data before migration is the best strategy one could ever apply. If your business depends on this data to run, handle it with care. Always, keep a good copy of your data around and test it by importing it back into the current software you’re migrating from. If it goes smoothly, back it up in two places, preferably with one on hard media like CD, DVD and hide it somewhere safe and secure.

Prepare Your Users: Let your staff know up front that they can expect software changes. Inform them in advance that your company is planning to convert Lotus Notes to Outlook. Imagine a situation when you unexpectedly come to know that today you have to use a new email client. So, to avoid such trouble prepare your users or employees with proper training on the new systems. Make sure their PCs have all the tools and configurations to use it, and ensure everyone has instructions, names, passwords required to access.

Install and Test the New Software: Use competent email migration software that offers you flawless migration and convert Lotus Notes to Outlook/Exchange Server in an easiest manner. Leave the original software running if possible while you install and prepare Microsoft Exchange. Import the data, test it all, make any custom configurations, and make sure it is all there.

Support your Users: First, users or employees must be asked to check their data to be sure all of their data has migrated successfully. Administrator must take the command for this task.

Lotus Notes to Outlook conversion tools are best suited for system administrators, technicians, and even individuals. They provide the entire migration process an easy way and is very much relaxing for user is who is using this. You can convert Lotus Notes to Outlook by migrating every email and item of .NSF file to .PST file thereby converting emails, attachments, images, notes, journals, appointments, tasks, schedules, to-do item list, sent emails, drafts, alarms, rules, calendar, address book, folder, and sub-folders at once. Such migration tool is known to support all versions of MS Outlook, Exchange Server, Lotus Notes, and Domino Server.