Microsoft Office 2000 Service Release 1 provides different bug fixes and features that allow you to enhance the reliability and performance of Office applications including of Microsoft Office Outlook. But after you install SR-1, you might observe several issues while using Microsoft Outlook. You might fail to start Outlook and receive an error message. It could occur if personal folder (.pst file) that Outlook uses to store all its data is corrupted. This will require you to restore from the most recent .pst file backup available. At times, you don't have any valid file backup available. Such situations necessitate that you use PST Recoveryapplications to repair and restore damaged PST file.

As an instance, when you try to start Microsoft Outlook 2000, you might fail to do so and encounter the below error message on screen:

"DDE server window: outlook.exe-no disk. There is no disk in the drive."

As an additional symptom, you might find that all the email messages that you had before installing Microsoft Office 2000 Service Release 1 are missing from your account.

Cause

You might experience the above symptoms if any of the below conditions exists:

• 
  Microsoft Outlook uses few log files to store journal information. Offitems.log is the file that contains information about files that you created, opened, saved or closed while Outlook was not running. Outitems.log is responsible for holding information about Outlook items, such as email message, tasks, appointments, notes and others. These binary file are extremely important for Outlook automatic journaling feature. The above error might result if these (Offitems.log and Outitems.log) journal log files are damaged.
  
• 
  Windows includes a file called Msvcrt.dll that is responsible for providing few basic services to Visual C++ compiled applications, like Microsoft Office Outlook. The services provided are memory allocation, comparing strings etc. Outlook might prompt the above error if Msvcrt.dll file is damaged or exists in incorrect version.
  
• 
  Outlook Personal Folder (.pst file) is damaged. PST is the single file storing all email messages, notes, tasks, appointments, journals and other Outlook items. It might get corrupted due to unexpected shutdown, file size limitation (in Outlook 97-2002), application errors and other similar causes.
  
• 
  PST is located on a removable media, which is not available now.
  

Solution

To fix the ‘DDE Error', you can use these methods:

1. 
   Rename the damaged Outlook journal log files. The next time when you will start Outlook, it will recreate these files. To do so, search for Outitems.log and Offitems.log files and rename them to Outitems.old and Offitems.old correspondingly. Restart Outlook after you perform this task.
   
2. 
   Verify the version of Msvcrt.dll file. If you find the file in incorrect version, you should replace the file from a suitable system.
   
3. 
   Check if the media, on which the PST file is located, is connected to the system. If this is not so, you should try to access the file after connecting the media to the system.
   
4. 
   You are recommended to install the latest Windows Service Pack available.
   
5. 
   Perform PST Repair for the damaged personal folder. To do so, you should run Inbox Repair Tool (scanpst.exe) to fix the corruption issues. You need to locate the tool and specify the file path, which will repair the damaged file. However, you can try to workaround the file damage issues by creating a new PST file and importing all the folders and subfolders from the affected PST file. Before doing so, it is suggested that you backup the .pst file. After this, you can run outlook.exe /cleanpst and open Outlook that will provide you an option to create a new .pst file. You can then use Import and Export option of File menu to import all Outlook data from the damaged PST file. If this doesn't help and also Inbox Repair Tool cannot repair the damaged file, you should use PST Recovery applications.
   

PST Recovery tools use powerful scanning algorithms to scan and repair a damaged PST file. Such utilities provide interactive user interface, explicit user-friendly features and comprehensive PST Recoveryresults.

Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair is an advanced and the most powerful repair product for damaged PST file. The tool supports safe recoverPST for files created with Outlook 2007, 2003, 2002 and 2000. It is fully-competent and read-only application that repairs and restores damaged .pst file in all file corruption scenarios. The software is compatible with Windows Vista, XP, 2003, 2000 and NT. Using the software, you can also recover a lost PST password and split a large PST file into several smaller PST files.