If your Microsoft Outlook 2000 cannot open mailbox folders and it is reporting that the Outlook folder is damaged, then you can use the Scanpst.exe or Inbox Repair tool supplied by Microsoft to repair the Outlook folder of Outlook 2000 - 2010. This small tool automatically gets installed in the computer when any of the versions of MS Office gets installed in the computer.
MS Outlook applications uses PST file to store Outlook data like mail folders, contacts, address books, appointments, calendars etc. But the format of this PST file varies as per the version of the Outlook like in Outlook 2000 the PST file supports ANSI file format and the later one uses UNICODE format. The issue generally occurs with the ANSI format of PST as its file size is limited to 2GB only and whenever PST file crosses this size limit, it gets corrupts and all its data becomes inaccessible. Apart from this there are several other reasons as well which cause the PST file to get corrupt.
The larger the size of the PST file, greater the chances of it to become damaged. It happens because the PST file size is increasing and outlook needs more and more resources to complete the tasks. So, it works slower and becomes more prone to corruption and errors. To avoid this regularly check for the size of the PST file or use any add-in to shrink the size of the PST file.
When your Outlook PST file gets damaged, as a first attempt, Outlook automatically tries to repair the damaged file, when it is started. However, depending on the problem, Outlook may not be able to automatically repair the PST file and you will not be able to enter the main Outlook window. Apart from that it will also display error messages along with the description and the brief intro regarding the error message.
In order to repair the Outlook folder you have to use Scanpt.exe or Inbox Repair Tool which is an inbuilt repair utility that is efficient enough to tackle the small corruption issues of PST file. But in case corruption is really very serious then to recover the lost inaccessible files third party Outlook PST Repair software need to be used.
It's really difficult to get back Outlook data after a system crash. But I easily get back the entire lost data even after my system crash with the help of Outlook PST Repair software.
Thank you again for the great help!
Allen 'Oahu'