Markus

a friend asked me a question, which, for a change, I could not answer!

They have Outlook (2001 I believe, I know it's fairly old and that it is NOT Outlook Express) and they want to make absolutley sure that any deleted emails are trully gone.

Is this possible? if so how? They want to preserve any existing email so it's not like we can just trash and reinstall outlook.

judgejules

First question is do they connect to an exchange server, or is it all local ?

Jules

Markus

Major DOH! on my part here. It's all local. they don't use an exchange server.

judgejules

If you're trying to stop someone low level reading the disk and getting the emails off then, probably the most secure:

Create a new PST
_Copy_ (dont move) all mail to the new PST
Test new PST etc
Remove old PST from outlook, so email is now going to the new PST
Test (send email to self)
Use a file eraser utility (search on google for file eraser) which you can run on the old PST to set its contents to 0's before its deleted.

J

Markus

ok, silly question how would one create a new PST and copy the new mail to it? this just creating a new mailbox and moving the items over? what happens if it's the inbox?

judgejules

File->New->Outlook Data File ?

Im not up to speed on using Outlook at a POP3 store as we connect it to an Exchange server at work. The inbox should just act like another folder, so either drag with a + onto the new PST and it should remake the structure there.

When the mail is copied across poke around in properties etc and see if you cant find the location of the default PST which holds all your original email.

J

Markus

thanks for the info.