Entourage Overwrote Main Identity

S

shelly

Hello -
Let me start by saying I know I should have renamed my main indentity!
I can't believe I didn't.
I was using Entourage 2004 on a Powerbook Mac running OS X 10.4.6. In
the middle of witing an email, Entourage came up with a "Your Database
is Corrupt" error. I had to force quit and restart in an effort to
rebuild the database. When I restarted, my Main Identity was 18.1 M and
all my data was gone.
I have run Disk Utility and Disk Warrior with no success. I have used
the Apple F find command to find both visible and invisible files named
Main, Microsoft and Database to no avail.
Does anyone have any other suggestions for finding this missing data?
If Entourage overwrote it, is it just gone forever?
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thanks!
Shelly
 
M

Michel Bintener

Hi Shelly,

renaming your main identity should not, under normal circumstances, produce
such an effect. Of course, you should not rename it while Entourage is
running, but that's not the problem right here. 18.1MB is the size of an
empty database; the one you're currently using is most likely not your old
identity. The easiest thing to try right now would be to go to
Entourage>Switch Identities and see if your old identity shows up in that
list. If it does, switch into it and see if your data's still there. If you
keep getting the corruption warning, quit Entourage, hold down the Option
(Alt)-Key and start it again to launch the Database Utility which might be
able to uncorrupt your database. If your old identity does not show up,
check ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2004 Identities to see if there
are any other identities in there.

If the things I've described do not work, it is likely that the old database
got wiped out, though I can't exactly say how this happened. *Always* make
backup copies of your Identity folder, or even the Microsoft User Data
folder, to prevent such disasters from happening. If anything's unclear, or
if you need further assistance, just post back.


Hello -
Let me start by saying I know I should have renamed my main indentity!
I can't believe I didn't.
I was using Entourage 2004 on a Powerbook Mac running OS X 10.4.6. In
the middle of witing an email, Entourage came up with a "Your Database
is Corrupt" error. I had to force quit and restart in an effort to
rebuild the database. When I restarted, my Main Identity was 18.1 M and
all my data was gone.
I have run Disk Utility and Disk Warrior with no success. I have used
the Apple F find command to find both visible and invisible files named
Main, Microsoft and Database to no avail.
Does anyone have any other suggestions for finding this missing data?
If Entourage overwrote it, is it just gone forever?
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thanks!
Shelly
Click to expand...

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Word & Entourage)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***
 
S

shelly

Hi Michael -
Thanks for your help. Actually, I did not rename the database at any
point. I think my problem would have been avoided by doing so though,
because my suspicion is that if I had, Entourage would not have
overwritten my identity. It would have just created a new Main
Identity.
I have don extensive searches for identity or user folders and cannot
find any. I can't help but think that the data has to be SOMEWHERE.
Does Norton Unerase still support OsX? I got the impression it did not.

Is there anything else I can do to find that data?
Thanks for your help
- Shelly
 
M

Michel Bintener

Hi Shelly,

I don't think renaming your identity would have changed that much, but I
can't say for sure. I'm sorry, but I don't think that there's much that can
be done at this stage: if any of the methods I mentioned in my previous post
have not uncovered other identities, then it looks like your old database
got deleted for good. Your data might still be somewhere on your hard disk,
and some programs might be able to retrieve it (I'm not familiar with the
Norton products, so I can't say anything about them), but I'm not sure how
you would proceed to get them back into Entourage.

The way I see it, your old identity has been overwritten, and there is
little you can do to recover it, I'm afraid. Do you, by any chance, have
some kind of backup copy of your MUD folder, or your Documents folder? That
seems to me the only way of restoring your old data, at least partially.
Sorry for not being able to help you.


Hi Michael -
Thanks for your help. Actually, I did not rename the database at any
point. I think my problem would have been avoided by doing so though,
because my suspicion is that if I had, Entourage would not have
overwritten my identity. It would have just created a new Main
Identity.
I have don extensive searches for identity or user folders and cannot
find any. I can't help but think that the data has to be SOMEWHERE.
Does Norton Unerase still support OsX? I got the impression it did not.

Is there anything else I can do to find that data?
Thanks for your help
- Shelly
Click to expand...

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Word & Entourage)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***
 
D

Diane Ross

I was using Entourage 2004 on a Powerbook Mac running OS X 10.4.6. In
the middle of witing an email, Entourage came up with a "Your Database
is Corrupt" error. I had to force quit and restart in an effort to
rebuild the database. When I restarted, my Main Identity was 18.1 M and
all my data was gone.
Click to expand...

During a crash some data can be written to a file called "lost+found" at the
root level of the hard drive. This is a hidden folder. I know you mentioned
looking for invisible files but try to find this folder and see if you
Microsoft User Data folder is hiding there.

More info on "lost+found"

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/user/xfile1.html>
 
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