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.