I think I just lost a bunch of email

LibraryLady · 1st August 2007, 12:00 PM

This morning like a good girl I did a live update from Norton Security and then re-booted. When the computer started up, it gave a bunch of messages about orphaned files (poor little things) and recovering files, and such like. Then I discovered I could not access my email through Outlook. I had been meaning to install Thunderbird for a while, so I did, and the files that transferred over from Outlook to Thunderbird were dated from 2005. I've lost all my addresses and email since then.

Is there a way to get them back?

Please help.

And as always, I blame Lisa.

MortFurd · 1st August 2007, 11:30 PM

Given the messages you mention ("orphaned files" "recovering files,") it sounds bad.

Best case you've got (or had) file system corruption. That's probably gone, but then so are your files.

Worst case, you've got a bad hard drive that caused the corruption. In this case, the problem will get worse. The drive is a time bomb ticking away under your data.

How to tell what's wrong? Surest bet is to take the PC to a competent technician and have the drive checked. Keyword SMART. If the tech gives you a stupid look when you mention SMART, then find another tech.

SMART is the montiring system built in to all modern harddrives. A SMART monitoring program can check the status of the drive and tell the tech if the drive is OK or if it is dying.

LibraryLady · 2nd August 2007, 03:19 AM

That's not what I wanted to hear.

666 · 2nd August 2007, 04:47 AM

It's clutching at straws but do/did you have Outlook set up to delete files from the server? If not, you may be able to re-download any which are still retained there.

Good luck!

MortFurd · 2nd August 2007, 05:01 AM

Originally Posted by LibraryLady

That's not what I wanted to hear.

Well, I didn't figure you wanted to hear some warm fuzzy stuff about how your files are in a better place and are happier now.

Search your hard drive for folders named FOUNDNNN where NNN is a three digit number. There's a chance your missing files are in there, though you might be hard pressed to recognize them as there's no guarantee they'll have their correct names.

If you are comfortable using the command line, you might check smartmon tools and check the drive out yourself.

Download the installer, then open a command box and give the following commands:
"C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin\smartctl" -t short /dev/hda

Wait a few minutes then:
"C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin\smartctl" -a /dev/hda

Watch out for the spaces in those commands, and include the quotation marks.
Look for a big fat FAILED, and check the Reallocated sector count and the Current pending sector count.

If you get a failed, a read error, or either of the two mentioned above is anything but zero, then you need a new drive.

If you try it and can't figure out what it all means, post the text here and I'll give you a hand.

LibraryLady · 2nd August 2007, 07:36 AM

Smartmon? I've got a Jamaican computer?

I'm taking it to the nice people at Geeksquad tonight or tomorrow. Yes, I could probably be talked through all of this for free, but I'd rather have a real doctor than try alternative medicine.

I'll keep you informed.

illogical · 4th August 2007, 03:45 AM

Quote:

I'm taking it to the nice people at Geeksquad tonight or tomorrow.

the sad part is that the people here likely know more than the Geeksquad. people who are good at those jobs move into higher level stuff.

LibraryLady · 4th August 2007, 05:52 AM

Well, be that as it may, the nice Geeks tell me my hard drive is dying.

A moment of silence please.

Thank you.

I'm having them install a new hard drive. Yes I know buying a new computer is cheap, but this is cheaper and I haven't had a raise for nearly 8 years now.

a_unique_person · 7th August 2007, 06:30 AM

Norton is also a worry. I have sworn of their products. If you want a cheap anti-virus without the mammoth baggage of Norton, AVG free edition is still worth using.

What Operating System are you using?

Starthinker · 7th August 2007, 06:47 AM

Not to derail or anything, but we have a geeksquad at our Best Buy here in Mason and anyone I've heard of taking a computer in there has had a hard drive replaced, almost reguardless of the problem. I think it's their way of re-installing the OS and cleaning up the problem without doing any real troubleshooting. That is better than a business I worked at when I first moved to Mason who told their techs "your job is to sell a new computer to anyone bringing one in for repair, at all costs." I didn't last very long there as I've turned out to be honest.

LibraryLady · 7th August 2007, 08:47 AM

Well, whatever. Too late now. I still don't have my 'puter back...this is at work before work begins.

I run Windows (Microsoft XP). It matches what I have at work which is important.

I'm not a happy person right now, but it could be worse. Nick's getting lots and lots of attention. The little attention hog.

LibraryLady · 13th August 2007, 06:16 AM

I have ordered my wonderful new computer from Dell (Inspiron 530,Intel Core2 Duo processor E4400 (2.00GHz 800FSB) w/Dual Core Technologyand 2MB cache ) which should arrive this week. I will be back full time on the forums once I get set up, and then everyone needs to WATCH OUT!

However, Nick is now thoroughly spoiled with all the attention. So I'd better watch out too.

Wowbagger · 14th August 2007, 07:18 AM

I can probably recommend some data recovery experts, if no one else is able to recover the old data you want, from the old hard drive.

LibraryLady · 14th August 2007, 08:57 AM

Originally Posted by Wowbagger

I can probably recommend some data recovery experts, if no one else is able to recover the old data you want, from the old hard drive.

Thanks, Wow. Or Wow, thanks! I might take you up on it. Once I get the machine and see how my back up files pan out, I'll let you know.

LibraryLady · 17th August 2007, 03:30 PM

I'M BACK I'M BACK I'M BACK

a_unique_person · 18th August 2007, 12:55 AM

I see the new computer has some new, improved font sizes and colours than the old one.

Soapy Sam · 18th August 2007, 04:43 AM

Uh-oh. Better put the books back.

Soapy Sam · 21st August 2007, 05:31 PM

ps. You know why nobody in Wales will buy a Dell?

Gord_in_Toronto · 21st August 2007, 05:49 PM

Originally Posted by Soapy Sam

ps. You know why nobody in Wales will buy a Dell?

No? Should I ask my Dad who was born on Pontypool?

webfusion · 21st August 2007, 06:34 PM

Originally Posted by LibraryLady

I'm having them install a new hard drive. Yes I know buying a new computer is cheap, but this is cheaper and I haven't had a raise for nearly 8 years now.

Which was followed by:

I have ordered my wonderful new computer from Dell (Inspiron 530,Intel Core2 Duo processor E4400 2.00GHz 800FSB w/ 2MB cache) which should arrive this week.

What am I missing here?

Is this the computer you ordered?
[IMAGE LINK]
http://www.techgadgetforums.com/file...ond_laptop.jpg

1st August 2007, 12:00 PM	#1
LibraryLady ...but not JUST a LibraryLady Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Building a house in the common ground Posts: 13,065	I think I just lost a bunch of email This morning like a good girl I did a live update from Norton Security and then re-booted. When the computer started up, it gave a bunch of messages about orphaned files (poor little things) and recovering files, and such like. Then I discovered I could not access my email through Outlook. I had been meaning to install Thunderbird for a while, so I did, and the files that transferred over from Outlook to Thunderbird were dated from 2005. I've lost all my addresses and email since then. Is there a way to get them back? Please help. And as always, I blame Lisa.
	__________________ What would Hüsker Dü? I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about. Mildred Loving

1st August 2007, 11:30 PM	#2
MortFurd Graduate Poster Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: An American in Germany Posts: 1,975	Given the messages you mention ("orphaned files" "recovering files,") it sounds bad. Best case you've got (or had) file system corruption. That's probably gone, but then so are your files. Worst case, you've got a bad hard drive that caused the corruption. In this case, the problem will get worse. The drive is a time bomb ticking away under your data. How to tell what's wrong? Surest bet is to take the PC to a competent technician and have the drive checked. Keyword SMART. If the tech gives you a stupid look when you mention SMART, then find another tech. SMART is the montiring system built in to all modern harddrives. A SMART monitoring program can check the status of the drive and tell the tech if the drive is OK or if it is dying.
	__________________ Ace Baker gets pwned by Shrinker, and I get an Avatar.

2nd August 2007, 03:19 AM	#3
LibraryLady ...but not JUST a LibraryLady Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Building a house in the common ground Posts: 13,065	That's not what I wanted to hear.
	__________________ What would Hüsker Dü? I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about. Mildred Loving

2nd August 2007, 04:47 AM	#4
666 Whingeing Pom Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Slightly to the east of Kernow. Posts: 1,327	It's clutching at straws but do/did you have Outlook set up to delete files from the server? If not, you may be able to re-download any which are still retained there. Good luck!
	__________________

2nd August 2007, 05:01 AM	#5
MortFurd Graduate Poster Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: An American in Germany Posts: 1,975	Originally Posted by LibraryLady That's not what I wanted to hear. Well, I didn't figure you wanted to hear some warm fuzzy stuff about how your files are in a better place and are happier now. Search your hard drive for folders named FOUNDNNN where NNN is a three digit number. There's a chance your missing files are in there, though you might be hard pressed to recognize them as there's no guarantee they'll have their correct names. If you are comfortable using the command line, you might check smartmon tools and check the drive out yourself. Download the installer, then open a command box and give the following commands: "C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin\smartctl" -t short /dev/hda Wait a few minutes then: "C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin\smartctl" -a /dev/hda Watch out for the spaces in those commands, and include the quotation marks. Look for a big fat FAILED, and check the Reallocated sector count and the Current pending sector count. If you get a failed, a read error, or either of the two mentioned above is anything but zero, then you need a new drive. If you try it and can't figure out what it all means, post the text here and I'll give you a hand.
	__________________ Ace Baker gets pwned by Shrinker, and I get an Avatar. Last edited by MortFurd; 2nd August 2007 at 05:04 AM.

2nd August 2007, 07:36 AM	#6
LibraryLady ...but not JUST a LibraryLady Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Building a house in the common ground Posts: 13,065	Smartmon? I've got a Jamaican computer? I'm taking it to the nice people at Geeksquad tonight or tomorrow. Yes, I could probably be talked through all of this for free, but I'd rather have a real doctor than try alternative medicine. I'll keep you informed.
	__________________ What would Hüsker Dü? I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about. Mildred Loving

4th August 2007, 03:45 AM	#7
illogical Thinker Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 178	Quote: I'm taking it to the nice people at Geeksquad tonight or tomorrow. the sad part is that the people here likely know more than the Geeksquad. people who are good at those jobs move into higher level stuff.
illogical Thinker Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 178

4th August 2007, 05:52 AM	#8
LibraryLady ...but not JUST a LibraryLady Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Building a house in the common ground Posts: 13,065	Well, be that as it may, the nice Geeks tell me my hard drive is dying. A moment of silence please. Thank you. I'm having them install a new hard drive. Yes I know buying a new computer is cheap, but this is cheaper and I haven't had a raise for nearly 8 years now.
	__________________ What would Hüsker Dü? I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about. Mildred Loving

7th August 2007, 06:30 AM	#9
a_unique_person Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Mt Disappointment Posts: 33,317	Norton is also a worry. I have sworn of their products. If you want a cheap anti-virus without the mammoth baggage of Norton, AVG free edition is still worth using. What Operating System are you using?
	__________________ *Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity.* Everything is possible, but not everything is probable. For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it. Hobbes

7th August 2007, 06:47 AM	#10
Starthinker Philosopher Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Denver, CO Posts: 5,014	Not to derail or anything, but we have a geeksquad at our Best Buy here in Mason and anyone I've heard of taking a computer in there has had a hard drive replaced, almost reguardless of the problem. I think it's their way of re-installing the OS and cleaning up the problem without doing any real troubleshooting. That is better than a business I worked at when I first moved to Mason who told their techs "your job is to sell a new computer to anyone bringing one in for repair, at all costs." I didn't last very long there as I've turned out to be honest.
	__________________ \|¦¦\|¦ \|¦\|\|\|\|¦\|\|\|¦\|\|¦¦\|¦\|\|\|\|\|\|\|¦\|¦¦¦¦\|¦¦¦¦\|\|¦\|¦\|¦¦\|¦ \|¦¦\|¦ He who doubts victory has already lost the battle. Below the navel there is neither religion nor truth.

7th August 2007, 08:47 AM	#11
LibraryLady ...but not JUST a LibraryLady Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Building a house in the common ground Posts: 13,065	Well, whatever. Too late now. I still don't have my 'puter back...this is at work before work begins. I run Windows (Microsoft XP). It matches what I have at work which is important. I'm not a happy person right now, but it could be worse. Nick's getting lots and lots of attention. The little attention hog.
	__________________ What would Hüsker Dü? I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about. Mildred Loving

13th August 2007, 06:16 AM	#12
LibraryLady ...but not JUST a LibraryLady Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Building a house in the common ground Posts: 13,065	I have ordered my wonderful new computer from Dell (Inspiron 530,Intel Core2 Duo processor E4400 (2.00GHz 800FSB) w/Dual Core Technologyand 2MB cache ) which should arrive this week. I will be back full time on the forums once I get set up, and then everyone needs to WATCH OUT! However, Nick is now thoroughly spoiled with all the attention. So I'd better watch out too.
	__________________ What would Hüsker Dü? I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about. Mildred Loving

14th August 2007, 07:18 AM	#13
Wowbagger The Infinitely Prolonged Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Westchester County, NY (when not in space) Posts: 13,505	I can probably recommend some data recovery experts, if no one else is able to recover the old data you want, from the old hard drive.
	__________________ WARNING: Phrases in this post may sound meaner than they were intended to be. SkeptiCamp NYC: http://www.skepticampnyc.org/ An open conference on science and skepticism, where *you* could be a presenter! By the way, my first name is NOT Bowerick!!!!

14th August 2007, 08:57 AM	#14
LibraryLady ...but not JUST a LibraryLady Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Building a house in the common ground Posts: 13,065	Originally Posted by Wowbagger I can probably recommend some data recovery experts, if no one else is able to recover the old data you want, from the old hard drive. Thanks, Wow. Or Wow, thanks! I might take you up on it. Once I get the machine and see how my back up files pan out, I'll let you know.
	__________________ What would Hüsker Dü? I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about. Mildred Loving

17th August 2007, 03:30 PM	#15
LibraryLady ...but not JUST a LibraryLady Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Building a house in the common ground Posts: 13,065	I'M BACK I'M BACK I'M BACK I'M BACK I'M BACK I'M BACK
	__________________ What would Hüsker Dü? I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about. Mildred Loving

18th August 2007, 12:55 AM	#16
a_unique_person Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Mt Disappointment Posts: 33,317	I see the new computer has some new, improved font sizes and colours than the old one.
	__________________ *Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity.* Everything is possible, but not everything is probable. For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it. Hobbes

18th August 2007, 04:43 AM	#17
Soapy Sam NLH Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 25,885	Uh-oh. Better put the books back.
Soapy Sam NLH Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 25,885

21st August 2007, 05:31 PM	#18
Soapy Sam NLH Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 25,885	ps. You know why nobody in Wales will buy a Dell?
Soapy Sam NLH Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 25,885

21st August 2007, 05:49 PM	#19
Gord_in_Toronto Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 13,411	Originally Posted by Soapy Sam ps. You know why nobody in Wales will buy a Dell? No? Should I ask my Dad who was born on Pontypool?
	__________________ "Reality is what's left when you cease to believe." Philip K. Dick

21st August 2007, 06:34 PM	#20
webfusion Philosopher Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Near I-95 Posts: 6,216	Originally Posted by LibraryLady I'm having them install a new hard drive. Yes I know buying a new computer is cheap, but this is cheaper and I haven't had a raise for nearly 8 years now. Which was followed by: I have ordered my wonderful new computer from Dell (Inspiron 530,Intel Core2 Duo processor E4400 2.00GHz 800FSB w/ 2MB cache) which should arrive this week. What am I missing here? Is this the computer you ordered? [IMAGE LINK] http://www.techgadgetforums.com/file...ond_laptop.jpg