A little knowledge a dangerous thing

G

gjbreal

I was trying to change my layout and follow a suggestion to put what i
thought was a copy of my doocuments folder on my dock. Instead it
dissapeared in a puff of smoke. I it isnt in my trash can, and i have
now discovered it is on my desk top. All doesnt seem lost as i have
been able to move all my filesl back - i set up a new folder called
'documents' and moved everything back. However when i opened Enterage
everything was gone! my emails, contacts, calander and rules! Have i
lost these for good or where might i find them and recover them.. a
stupid thing to do i know...as i said a little knoweldge is a
dangerous thing
 
B

Bill Weylock

What version of Entourage/Office?

What was the name of the folder you moved?

Where was it originally?

If you¹re using 2004, your Entourage information was in
User(You)/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2004 Identities. That¹s where
Entourage will be looking for it.

Why you ³set up a new folder called 'documents'² is beyond me, and I don¹t
know what you mean by ³moved everything back.²

If the documents folder was on the desktop, why didn¹t you simply drag it
back where it belongs?

There is a documents folder at the very top level of your computer. If you
put your stuff in that, you need to move it to the Documents folder inside
your user account.

Sounds as if you need to move slowly and carfully now.

If you don¹t understand exactly what I¹m talking about, you would probably
be better advised to ask me a question before you make any more big moves.
You could find yourself having to rebuild your whole installation.

Don¹t suppose you make regular backups of your drive contents?


Best,


- Bill


I was trying to change my layout and follow a suggestion to put what i
thought was a copy of my doocuments folder on my dock. Instead it
dissapeared in a puff of smoke. I it isnt in my trash can, and i have
now discovered it is on my desk top. All doesnt seem lost as i have
been able to move all my filesl back - i set up a new folder called
'documents' and moved everything back. However when i opened Enterage
everything was gone! my emails, contacts, calander and rules! Have i
lost these for good or where might i find them and recover them.. a
stupid thing to do i know...as i said a little knoweldge is a
dangerous thing
Click to expand...




Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003
 
B

Bryan \Beau\ Grant

Well if they are not actually completed, you should be able to find them by
doing a find on your entourage database¹s filename.
That will tell you where all the rest of your personal stuff may have ended
up as well, I would imagine.
Beau Grant
 
B

breal

Office / Entourage 2004
Panther 10.3.7
the folder was called Documents (the one set up by system that appears
on left in Finder
I set up a new folder before i realised the folder was on my desktop. I
though when it went 'poof' it went to my trash can but it wasnt there.
When i founfd the folder i copied everything back as i was fearful of
making another mistake. I see now i should have moved it all back.
totally agree with the remark about moving slowy. hence my header - a
litle knowledge is a dangerous thng.
Yes back up my drive - or at least i have a copy of my 'documents'
folder and other key files. But before i went there i thought i would
ask the question as a way of findiong out what i had done so wrong. I
have since restored some of this by importing from Mail which i had as
one form of back up, but not the latest configuration and doesnt have
all my rules.

i see in the location you suggest (Bill) the files ;databases;rules
etc....is it simply a case of copying and pasting these?

Thanks for the advice Bill and Beau Grant.... and yes i feel incredibly
stupid
 
B

Bill Weylock

I really wish you luck with this.

Read the help files about identities.

Remember to make a mental distinction between the TWO Documents folders. The
one that matters to you is the User/Documents folder.

For the rest of this, I don¹t know what to say.

If you¹re sure you have the original Main Identity folder from the Office
2004 Identites folder, you could drag the new one out and put the old one
(original) back in. Copy and paste make no sense to me. When you have your
original Main Identity folder back in there, restart Entourage. Maybe you¹ll
be okay. Maybe it will tell you to repair the database. Go ahead.

Since you do have a backup, things can get only so bad.

Good luck.


Office / Entourage 2004
Panther 10.3.7
the folder was called Documents (the one set up by system that appears
on left in Finder
I set up a new folder before i realised the folder was on my desktop. I
though when it went 'poof' it went to my trash can but it wasnt there.
When i founfd the folder i copied everything back as i was fearful of
making another mistake. I see now i should have moved it all back.
totally agree with the remark about moving slowy. hence my header - a
litle knowledge is a dangerous thng.
Yes back up my drive - or at least i have a copy of my 'documents'
folder and other key files. But before i went there i thought i would
ask the question as a way of findiong out what i had done so wrong. I
have since restored some of this by importing from Mail which i had as
one form of back up, but not the latest configuration and doesnt have
all my rules.

i see in the location you suggest (Bill) the files ;databases;rules
etc....is it simply a case of copying and pasting these?

Thanks for the advice Bill and Beau Grant.... and yes i feel incredibly
stupid
Click to expand...




Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003
 
B

breal

Thanks Bill, I have managed to get everything back almost to where it
was. A lucky escape from doing somehing stupid ,,,, even if it looked
inocuous at the time...thanks for your help...Gary
 
B

Bill Weylock

Welcome. Glad if I could help.

If something like this happens again, you¹ll get help faster if you give
people ³paths² to the folders you¹re talking about. That¹s a big deal in
Panther.


Best,


- Bill


Thanks Bill, I have managed to get everything back almost to where it
was. A lucky escape from doing somehing stupid ,,,, even if it looked
inocuous at the time...thanks for your help...Gary
Click to expand...




Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003
 
I

Ian Robinson

I set up a new folder before i realised the folder was on my desktop. I
though when it went 'poof' it went to my trash can but it wasnt there.
Click to expand...

When you dragged the Documents folder from the left hand pane of a
Finder window, and it went "poof", you weren't deleting the actual
Documents folder. Just the shortcut to it in the left hand pane.

You should have, as you've since discovered, just dragged the Documents
folder you found on your Desktop back into your Home folder.

Incidentally, if you now don't have a Documents folder in the left hand
pane of Finder windows, and want it back, you can drag the Documents
folder from your home directory to the left hand pane and you'll have
the shortcut back. If you do this and drag it out again you'll see the
"poof" animation. Try it. Just make sure you are dragging the shortcut
from the left hand pane and not the actual Documents folder from within
a Finder window. You can drag any folder you like into this pane to
make a shortcut to it. Drag them out to get rid of them.

Ian
 
B

Barry Wainwright

I was trying to change my layout and follow a suggestion to put what i
thought was a copy of my doocuments folder on my dock. Instead it
dissapeared in a puff of smoke. I it isnt in my trash can, and i have
now discovered it is on my desk top. All doesnt seem lost as i have
been able to move all my filesl back - i set up a new folder called
'documents' and moved everything back. However when i opened Enterage
everything was gone! my emails, contacts, calander and rules! Have i
lost these for good or where might i find them and recover them.. a
stupid thing to do i know...as i said a little knoweldge is a
dangerous thing
Click to expand...

First, log off and back on again. This will kill all running apps and any
association they have to the documents folder. When they restart they should
start to look for the documents folder in the right places.

Then, open yo Home folder. Check there is a folder in there called
'Documents' and that the 'D' is capitalised 9remember, even though the mac
doesn't care about case, the UNIX underlay does!).

Now, see if entourage will open, and whether it starts with an empty
database or recovers your old one. Write back and let us know.
 
B

breal

I managed to get everything back using back ups. I lost some emails but
the main thing is i learnt a valuable lesson about idnetities.
Especially that i should be backing these up in my regular routine. ie
my Home folder.

i think i wrote over my original database file when i started entourage
and it was a new install. I went ahead and set it up and began drawing
on back up data before i realised the folder was on the desk top.
Thanks for all the help everyone has offered...Gary
 
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