On 11/5/06 1:06 PM, "Louise Stewart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Do you have a solution to my getting my Entourage stuff back? I have > a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE amt of names in my address book and cannot imagine > not being able to find them again. Louise, I hope you'll forgive me for making use of your misfortune for the benefit of others (and perhaps you as well), but your predicament and your response to it illustrates that we've not yet reached Steve Jobs's goal of computer-as-toaster (an appliance you just USE, without thinking about it). If the "HUGE, HUGE, HUGE" number of contacts you have in Entourage are important, you should know where and how Entourage stores them as well as how to make backup copies for just this sort of emergency. I don't have Entourage 2001 any more, so I don't know exactly what "help" information shipped with it. Office 2004's online help isn't exactly robust here. If I search for "backup" in Entourage Help, I'm led to a terse entry telling me I can restore from a backup, but it doesn't even tell me the path to the file, or that it IS a single file, etc. So, Microsoft is less helpful than it might be, but the information IS readily available. In your case, you make mention of files named "Old Database", etc., and one of those might be your savior. However, randomly clicking on files without knowing what purpose they serve in Entourage is likely to make your problems WORSE, not better. Others have mentioned that there are programs you can obtain that run in OS 9 that can scour your computer's hard drive for files you've deleted by dragging them to the trash and emptying the trash, but they work ONLY if the space on the hard drive hasn't been used for other files, and the more you use your hard drive clicking here and there trying to find your missing data, the more likely you are to overwrite your existing (but "deleted") data. Your first posting on this topic is the most helpful. Assuming that previously you haven't instructed Entourage to use a user Database file in a non-standard location or with a non-standard name, you've not likely deleted it, because you said you trashed files ONLY from your desktop. I get the impression, reading between the lines, that you believe using Outlook Express for Mac somehow caused your problem. I don't know how Outlook Express for Mac stores data, but I doubt that it and Entourage would interact fatally with each other. (Perhaps others can elaborate on this clue, if it is one). When examining files that MAY contain your data, pay attention to the information that you can get from doing a "Get Info" on the files in the Finder (when were they last modified; when were they created; how BIG are they?). A new MUD file will have a new creation date and be rather small; a database with a "HUGE, HUGE, HUGE" number of names will have a creation date as old as when you first deposited things in it, and it will be much larger, with a file modification date the same as when you last did something to it. Please, please, PLEASE profit from this experience by sitting down at your computer, figuring out what's on its hard drive that's irreplaceable, and planning/executing strategies to avoid personal disaster. Obvious candidates include your passwords, your Quicken (or other money management) data file, documents you've created that might have legal importance to you, digital photographs whose loss you'd mourn, etc. This strategy MUST include ways to get it done painlessly, frequently, and ON ANOTHER DEVICE (external hard drive, DVDs, tape, another computer you sync to your main one, or whatever you choose). Also, whenever you begin using a new program that is going to store information you cannot afford to lose, figure out IMMEDIATELY where and how it stores that information and add it to your backup strategy. Jim Robertson -- -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
