Outlook losing all my emails!
OK here we go.
To cut a long story short. I have a 80Gb Hard drive, split into 2 partitions.
The first partition (primary boot) is 8GB and then there is the remainder.
Sadly I converted the basic disk to a dynamic disk so I can not use partition magic to extend or merge the partitions.
I ran out of disk space on my boot disk. I had about 5GB in the "program files" folder, so for a quick fix, I copied all of the program files folder to another hard disk.
Then using the command prompt, deleted the original "C:\program Files"
I then mounted the 2nd partition as a folder "C:\program files".
Seems to work so far.
Next a copied the contents of the backedup original "Program Files" folder to the 2nd partition.
Bingo. Everything is their, winxp is treating the mounted drive as the original program files folder. Installed programs appear to work just fine. Disk space problem solved.
Then I started noticing problems -
First I noticed active sync stopped working, synchronising mycontacts email etc with my smart phone.
So I removed that, and reinstalled active sync of the microsoft website. didn't fix it - it now says that I don't have contacts, calender, tasks installed on my computer. - What?
Load up outlook (office 2003) appears to work fine, all of my appoitments their, and contacts, emial etc.
Then I watch it download an email (status bar counting file downloaded) then it finished but no email. I conducted several tests sending mail to myself with no avail, sending large and small emails. it sends ok, outlook downloads them but then they disappear!
I checked on the web mail access to my mail account, and their are all of the missing emails just like that.
So outlook (office 2003) is knackered.
seems to lose emails on receipt, and tells active sync that I don't have any contacts or calender installed.
Anybody no what could have happened? and how do I fix it without re-installing?
Why does it not work?
aaarrrrgggghhh!
To cut a long story short. I have a 80Gb Hard drive, split into 2 partitions.
The first partition (primary boot) is 8GB and then there is the remainder.
Sadly I converted the basic disk to a dynamic disk so I can not use partition magic to extend or merge the partitions.
I ran out of disk space on my boot disk. I had about 5GB in the "program files" folder, so for a quick fix, I copied all of the program files folder to another hard disk.
Then using the command prompt, deleted the original "C:\program Files"
I then mounted the 2nd partition as a folder "C:\program files".
Seems to work so far.
Next a copied the contents of the backedup original "Program Files" folder to the 2nd partition.
Bingo. Everything is their, winxp is treating the mounted drive as the original program files folder. Installed programs appear to work just fine. Disk space problem solved.
Then I started noticing problems -
First I noticed active sync stopped working, synchronising mycontacts email etc with my smart phone.
So I removed that, and reinstalled active sync of the microsoft website. didn't fix it - it now says that I don't have contacts, calender, tasks installed on my computer. - What?
Load up outlook (office 2003) appears to work fine, all of my appoitments their, and contacts, emial etc.
Then I watch it download an email (status bar counting file downloaded) then it finished but no email. I conducted several tests sending mail to myself with no avail, sending large and small emails. it sends ok, outlook downloads them but then they disappear!
I checked on the web mail access to my mail account, and their are all of the missing emails just like that.
So outlook (office 2003) is knackered.
seems to lose emails on receipt, and tells active sync that I don't have any contacts or calender installed.
Anybody no what could have happened? and how do I fix it without re-installing?
Why does it not work?
aaarrrrgggghhh!
0
Comments
but really why would any links be messed up. The Program Files folder should be exactly the same as before. Its in the same place holding all the same files.
That the point of mounting a drive as a folder, the os should treat it identical to a folder.
Chris, the only thing that really springs to mind is to check 'messages' is selected in Outlook under View - Arrange By - Current View. I don't actually think that will be the problem, but it's worth just checking. I'll presume you've checked your Junk Mail folder.
My real suggestion would be to backup your .pst file, which by default is located C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook, and at the very least re-install Outlook, but ideally I would just nuke Windows, start from scratch and setup your partitions the way your want them, ideally giving your c: drive a bit more breathing room this time.
On a more personal note, I have to say that setting up your boot partition as only 8GB was a little silly. What? Were you just being nostalgic about the old NT4 days? I also have to say though that your solution to your disk space issue was wonderfully inspiring.
Let me know how you get on. **nuke it** cough.
Cheers
I have by the way for anyone whos interested, discovered the problem (I think, unable to test theory)
using a registry scan program, it picks up almost every office key as invalid.
It gives the location of the program it points too correctly as c:\progra~1\Microso~2 etc. so why is it not correct.
The answer is in the long filename vs short filename.
Although my new mounted program files folder is identical. The short folder names have changed so registry keys are invalid.
Also the sub folders in "Program Files" also have incorrect short 8.3 names as they have been created by the os in the wrong order.
So to correct this I need to edit the 2479 registry entries swapping the short filenames for the longversion. unfortunately I do not have a registry utility to swap this information automatically and can't afford one of the many out their.
So I can't test this theory but I'm sure that is the problem.
Anyway, all this happened as there was no other way to free up some space on my partition (all my data, music photos etc (180GB worth) are on other disks) as I couldn't extend my partition. To save me from having to reinstall my pc with a bigger partition.
but it looks like thats going to be the soulution to my problem now, so hey ho.
PreFetch directory is cleared, maxanon thanks.
Any other suggestions welcome.