Entourage Disaster
Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:25 pm
I wanted to share with you the experience I had on Friday with my computer hopefully it will prevent the same thing happening to any of you.
I use an Apple Mac computer and with it, the Microsoft Entourage programme for my emails.
On Friday the computer had to be forcibly shut down. When it was re-started the entire Entourage programme with all my documentation over the last 5 years - equally 1.95GB had gone and in its place a completely new Entourage box with one solitary email saying 'Welcome to Mircrosoft" A call to Apple informed me it was Microsoft's problem but then everything was closed until Monday. I spent the whole weekend in a state of panic not daring to do anything until I had spoken to the technical department.
I spent 3 hours on the telephone to Microsoft on Monday and the result was that it had vanished. A search for the database file resulted in nothing and they declared there was nothing further they could do. Apparently if you go to Google and type in 'entourage lost my email' you will see that this in fact is a common problem, so common that I had never heard of anything like it.
There was noting further to be accomplished and with heavy heart decided to load the back-up which was 20 days old. Getting so many emails a day I figured I had probably lost 2000 emails but that I could beg for people to re-send them. Then a total disaster the back-up was incomplete. I went to a back-up for December and that too was incomplete. Another long phone call - result was that they were sorry, they had no idea why it hard failed to make a complete file but that I should ring Apple as it must have something to do with their operating system.
I decided before doing anything more I would make a total back-up of everything within Apple and mum came back with a mobile hard drive and I spent two days transferring everything over and cleaning out things that were no longer needed.
Hidden deep in other files I came across the 'Microsoft user file' and judging by the size and date it had to be the missing file (the emails that had been lost when the computer crashed. It took another call and another 4 hours before Microsoft could go through it with me step by step and try and attach it back. The computer found another 5 duplicate files which were apparently clashing with each other and so the 'search' was not recognizing them. Every time the computer had played up over the last few months the computer had made recovery files but re-named them so again they were not recognized. It took us deleting 18 sets of partial deletions and lots of trashing to be finally left with only the 'one' which was then transfered to the right area so that the computer would recognize the one I wanted.
Last night at 11.00 pm the system was up and running as it had been last Friday and a new back-up made.
One thing to prevent something similar happening is that when you force a shut-down or turn the computer off make sure your email programme, whether Entourage or Outlook is shut down properly, DON'T just click the cross in the top corner. This deletion can only happen if the system crashes and the file was open at the time. If your computer crashes and the programme was open (say because you were actually working on it at the time) don't assume it has gone just because it says so.
Make regular back-ups of all important files. I had apparently backed up my files and although there was nothing wrong in the way I did it, Microsoft explained there was a 100% foolproof way to make a duplicate of the database which was different from the way I had been doing it.
Lastly if anyone has sent an email to me in the last six days, then please re-send it as that is all I ended up losing - the six days it took to put the computer back to the state it was before the crash.
Technology is one of the most wonderful things of the 21st century - until it goes wrong!!!!!!
I use an Apple Mac computer and with it, the Microsoft Entourage programme for my emails.
On Friday the computer had to be forcibly shut down. When it was re-started the entire Entourage programme with all my documentation over the last 5 years - equally 1.95GB had gone and in its place a completely new Entourage box with one solitary email saying 'Welcome to Mircrosoft" A call to Apple informed me it was Microsoft's problem but then everything was closed until Monday. I spent the whole weekend in a state of panic not daring to do anything until I had spoken to the technical department.
I spent 3 hours on the telephone to Microsoft on Monday and the result was that it had vanished. A search for the database file resulted in nothing and they declared there was nothing further they could do. Apparently if you go to Google and type in 'entourage lost my email' you will see that this in fact is a common problem, so common that I had never heard of anything like it.
There was noting further to be accomplished and with heavy heart decided to load the back-up which was 20 days old. Getting so many emails a day I figured I had probably lost 2000 emails but that I could beg for people to re-send them. Then a total disaster the back-up was incomplete. I went to a back-up for December and that too was incomplete. Another long phone call - result was that they were sorry, they had no idea why it hard failed to make a complete file but that I should ring Apple as it must have something to do with their operating system.
I decided before doing anything more I would make a total back-up of everything within Apple and mum came back with a mobile hard drive and I spent two days transferring everything over and cleaning out things that were no longer needed.
Hidden deep in other files I came across the 'Microsoft user file' and judging by the size and date it had to be the missing file (the emails that had been lost when the computer crashed. It took another call and another 4 hours before Microsoft could go through it with me step by step and try and attach it back. The computer found another 5 duplicate files which were apparently clashing with each other and so the 'search' was not recognizing them. Every time the computer had played up over the last few months the computer had made recovery files but re-named them so again they were not recognized. It took us deleting 18 sets of partial deletions and lots of trashing to be finally left with only the 'one' which was then transfered to the right area so that the computer would recognize the one I wanted.
Last night at 11.00 pm the system was up and running as it had been last Friday and a new back-up made.
One thing to prevent something similar happening is that when you force a shut-down or turn the computer off make sure your email programme, whether Entourage or Outlook is shut down properly, DON'T just click the cross in the top corner. This deletion can only happen if the system crashes and the file was open at the time. If your computer crashes and the programme was open (say because you were actually working on it at the time) don't assume it has gone just because it says so.
Make regular back-ups of all important files. I had apparently backed up my files and although there was nothing wrong in the way I did it, Microsoft explained there was a 100% foolproof way to make a duplicate of the database which was different from the way I had been doing it.
Lastly if anyone has sent an email to me in the last six days, then please re-send it as that is all I ended up losing - the six days it took to put the computer back to the state it was before the crash.
Technology is one of the most wonderful things of the 21st century - until it goes wrong!!!!!!
