A: It seems similar but there is a quite difference between the corrupted OST file and an orphaned OST file.

When OST File Becomes Corrupted?

There could be several reasons for corrupt OST file, Some of them are as follows:

Hardware Level Corruptions : Hardware related issues, mostly occur due to improper configuration of an external component which could be a hard drive, virus, a synchronization of OST file due to bad network connection.

: Hardware related issues, mostly occur due to improper configuration of an external component which could be a hard drive, virus, a synchronization of OST file due to bad network connection. Power Interruption : Sometimes, while OST file sync with Exchange Server and the sudden power failure could be the cause of the damaged OST file.

: Sometimes, while OST file sync with Exchange Server and the sudden power failure could be the cause of the damaged OST file. Software Issues: The OST file can also become corrupted or inaccessible due to bad shutdown of Outlook while OST syncing with Exchange Server or virus infections.

Reasons Behind Orphaned OST File:

Whenever an OST file is created in Outlook, it contains an encrypted token, that is associated with the configured account which is used to create that particular OST file. Next time, when the account changed with a different email service like gmail, yahoo etc, then the token associated with OST file becomes no longer with old account and the Outlook will not able to recognize that OST file. In such situation, the OST file becomes orphan and there would be no workaround exists.

How to Repair Damaged OST file and Access Its Data?

After MS Outlook 2010 and later releases, you can repair a corrupted OST file by deleting and re-downloading the OST file from Exchange Server. Similarly, the damaged OST file of previous versions of MS Outlook 2010 can be fixed by Outlook OST integrity checker (scanost.exe). But, there is no recovery guarantee of highly corrupted OST files, as it fixes minimum corruption issues. Also, it will not be useful for fixing orphaned OST file issues. Hence, there is no workaround to convert orphaned OST file to PST file using scanost.exe.

On the other hand, to quickly repair the damaged OST file or access orphaned OST file data, this OST to PST converter will help you in recovery of corrupted as well as healthy OST file. Also, the tool to convert OST to PST is capable to convert orphan OST file to PST format without MS Outlook environment.