Outlook PST file nightmare

After this http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/switcher-hangout/242661-switched-last-collect-tomorrow.html thread, I thought I was home and dry. The shop that sold me the Mac would transfer my data from my PC to my Mac - wrong!

They are not able to transfer the Outlook PST file, apparently it's too big (5.3 gb). They have been working on it for three days and tried various programs, all that has happened it that they have damaged my existing Outlook email files.

I have decided to cut and run and I am going to try Apple Cambridge tomorrow to see if they can do a better job.

Has anyone got any suggestions please?

Yes.

Little Machines

PS. A search of this forum would have yielded you this thread, which already answered the question.

Sorry, I should have said, O2M was one of the bits of software they tried, it got to 70%, then said the file was too big.

Is there any way to break down the Outlook export into separate, smaller PST files

If all else fails, you might try iCloud when it becomes available. I used MobileMe to transfer my Outlook files and it worked perfectly

I guess I don't understand how a business or anyone for that matter would allow an Outlook PST file to grow to 5.3 GB. Even when I was working for the US Government and everything was done from Outlook, the data was archived long before the PST grew too large.

As was suggested by louishen, break the file up into smaller lengths first if possible. You can always concatenate the parts later on if need be.

Apple Cambridge have my old machine now, they did not seem phased by the size of the file, time will tell if they can sort it.
I run my own business so it's my own fault the file is so large.

Well at last I'm sort of sorted, the PST file was corrupted so after a lot of tooing and frowing I am up and running. I am planning on ditching the email/diary/contacts section of Office in favor of Mac's versions which seem far more stable and better suited to a Mac.
I managed to get my diary and contacts over to the new machine by using my iPhone as a go between.

You will never have the same problem using Mail, as its database is not a huge archive like the monolithic PST file but instead just a collection of the emails themselves, very accessible.