!! LONG GRUESOME POST: NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED !! Okay, I guess more than anything I want sympathy but any advice (either off or on-list) would be welcome too.
G4 450, OS 9.1, Major crash (don't ask how) messed up the directory, allocation blocks etc. of my system disk and caused it to crash Norton Utilities whilst trying to do a Volume Recover "Rebuild Directories"! Result: disk won't mount. Symantec site says this is due to a MountCheck error that N.Utils can't always fix. Suggests I try Disk First Aid, it'll fix it. So I do, and it does, and my hard drive reappears on the desktop - but it's showing itself as totally empty! Minor heart attack. Use Norton UnErase to see files are all still there (ish). Most of the stuff on my system disk is lose-able, so to speak - just the hassle of having to reinstall OS and 50 squillion apps. Sigh. I keep all my client work on a separate HD. But here's where it gets pertinent: what's not lose-able is my email Messages database, which is cleverly kept on the system disk in the Documents folder. Could blame Apple or Microsoft for this set-up but then I could've always aliased it to another drive - I will in future! FYI my last full backup of Messages database to another disk was in August. Was it really that long ago. Ouch. With UnErase I manage to locate my main Messages file. Hold tight, it is 672mb (yes, I archive "finished" mail regularly; yes, I rebuild etc.) and worse, for some reason UnErase rates it's chances of recoverability as "Poor". Most other stuff on the disk I snatch via UnErase rates as "Good". I recover it anyway. Once I get a new OS installed on a clean HD (haven't overwritten the crashed one yet), I install Entourage and try opening the Messages file - along with the Database, Database Cache etc. files I've recovered that you need in a User folder. No joy. Get an end of file error. Typical and Advanced rebuilds say no. Even tried the OE rebuild trick I read somewhere recently. Same. I opened the file using BBEdit and there seems to be stuff there, but as a lot of that filesize bulk is due to attachments, there's also plenty of gibberish which I don't feel confident about cutting and pasting into new files. Besides BBEdit doesn't have enough memory to save it as a text file. (Haven't yet tried allocating more memory to BBE - I have 1.25gb RAM.) - Why is this file's recoverability so poor? Is it due to its size (no doubt it's probably fragmented across the drive)? - UnErase allows me to view the file contents as Text in a window which I could copy to the clipboard (can the clipboard handle 672mb worth of text?) and paste into say BBEdit/Word. But is this text version prior to recovery likely to be more reliable than a recovered file? - If I *could* get it saved as text file, could I just save it as filetype MBOX and reimport it that way? What distinct difference is there between an Ent Messages file and an MBOX? And if the Ent file has an end of file will the MBOX just be the same? - Obviously I could wade through the Text contents (all 672mb of it) for vital messages. But that fills me with fear and, like I say, a lot of the important data is actually attachments which show in the Text version as gibberish. (BTW the number of people and such that I would have to ask to resend important files is not feasible, so don't try that line of advice. Oh and thankfully, I have all my Address Book, Calendar and other data synced to my Palm so I know I can get that back into Ent in due course, it's just them pesky emails...) Anyways, that feels better just to talk about it. If you have any inspiration you will make a tired man very happy. Thanks! -- Tim Mountford [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------ http://www.thehappyhouse.co.uk funkimedia solutions for the 21st century communiculture -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
