Wednesday, August 8, 2012

How to Repair and Recover Data from Corrupt NSF File

Are you unable to send or receive e-mails in Lotus Notes? Are you unable to access any of the Lotus Notes database? This problem is usually caused due to corruption of Lotus Notes database which can be solved with the help of Lotus Notes recovery software

Lotus Notes is an e-mail client which is used in large number of areas. It uses NFS file format to store user data which at times can get corrupted and make the entire database inaccessible. One of such issues occurs when you try to send an e-mail message. The error message resembles to the following:

"Server Error: This database cannot be read due to an invalid on disk structure"


After this error message, the mail still sends successfully but the mail is not saved in the ‘Sent’ folder. To deal with this issue, you need to find out the cause of this error message.

The above error message occurs when you have ‘Always keep a copy’ option checked for the ‘Save mail that you sent’ option. This option saves every sent mail to the Sent folder. In case, you are able to send e-mails after you change this setting to not keep a copy then this indicates that the Sent folder is corrupt. In such situations, you can not access any of the data in the Sent folder.

To fix this issue, you need to repair the mail database which can be done by running ‘Fixup’ or ‘compact’ utilities. To run ‘Fixup’ on a Lotus Notes database, follow the below mentioned steps:

1. From the Domino Administrator, select the server on which to want to run ‘Fixup’.

2. Now, click on the ‘Server – Status’ tab.

3. Click on ‘Task – Start’ which is in the task panel on the right.

4. Select ‘Fixup’ and then click ‘Start Task’.


These utilities allow you to repair the corrupt Lotus Notes database but in case, these utilities did not solve the issue then you will be left with inaccessible database. In such cases, you can use NSF file recovery software to repair the database. These software are capable enough to repair the database regardless of the reason of corruption.

Sometimes, it is difficult to select the best software from a number of options available in the market. Thus, you can search for software which are available with a free demo version.

Stellar Phoenix Lotus Notes Recovery is one of such software that allows you to download a free demo version so that you can check its features before buying it. This software uses powerful algorithms to repair and recover data from corrupt NSF file.