Input/Output error message and corrupted Entourage database

  • Thread starter Kathryn Geismar
  • Start date
K

Kathryn Geismar

Monday night I was deleting old messages from my Entourage email account
(2004 v. 11.0.0 now updated to the most recent version). At a certain
point, an email would not delete -- it froze at the spinning busy ball. I
let it go about a full five minutes before trying to force quit out of
Entourage altogether. Even the force quit wouldn't happen. After about 10
more minutes, I turned off the computer, hoping to reboot and get things
going again. But when I rebooted, I could no longer use my Entourage
account because the database was corrupted. I checked the integrity using
the database tools and was told I needed to repair the database. But when I
tried to repair it, I got an I/O error in step one. I called Microsoft tech
support and was led through several steps to try to remedy the problem:
updating my version of Entourage to the most recent and trying again and
manually choosing the data repair option. Each to no avail. The wonderful
guy trying to help me suggested that I contact the newsgroup to see if
anyone has anything else to try. My computer is not for work -- just for
home use and I haven't backed up my email account...Ever. So I've lost
every address, every message, etc. I'd love to be able to repair it, or at
least get back something. Any advice would be much appreciated!
 
D

Diane

Monday night I was deleting old messages from my Entourage email account
(2004 v. 11.0.0 now updated to the most recent version). At a certain
point, an email would not delete -- it froze at the spinning busy ball. I
let it go about a full five minutes before trying to force quit out of
Entourage altogether. Even the force quit wouldn't happen. After about 10
more minutes, I turned off the computer, hoping to reboot and get things
going again. But when I rebooted, I could no longer use my Entourage
account because the database was corrupted. I checked the integrity using
the database tools and was told I needed to repair the database. But when I
tried to repair it, I got an I/O error in step one. I called Microsoft tech
support and was led through several steps to try to remedy the problem:
updating my version of Entourage to the most recent and trying again and
manually choosing the data repair option. Each to no avail. The wonderful
guy trying to help me suggested that I contact the newsgroup to see if
anyone has anything else to try. My computer is not for work -- just for
home use and I haven't backed up my email account...Ever. So I've lost
every address, every message, etc. I'd love to be able to repair it, or at
least get back something. Any advice would be much appreciated!
Click to expand...

I/O error almost always means disk damage. Open Disk Utility and run "Repair
Disk". I saw where another user recovered data with this error using Disk
Warrior.

I would take this as a warning that your drive might be on it's last legs
and take steps to backup your important data to an external source.

During a rebuild Entourage makes a backup copy. It's possible you could
revert to this backup copy and rebuild it. Look in your 2004 Identities
folder inside the Microsoft User Data folder in Documents. The old files
should be named Like this:

Main [Backed up date and time will be shown] e.g. Main [Backed up 1-21-2007
13.35]

Move the current Identity to the desktop and rename the backup files so they
appear as named before and open Entourage. Entourage should try to open the
backup since you moved the other Identity out of Microsoft User Data folder.

The backup is not always a good copy though and can fail when there are
other problems like disk damage.
 
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