Accidentally deleted account

[Dean_Madsen]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: pop

I just upgraded my Office 2004 to Office 2008 Special Media Edition. I had a very large Microsoft User Data file with about 26GBs of past emails, contacts, etc. Needless to say the upgrade was very slow. I hate the installer dialog box as it did not have any progress window to let me know where in the process I was at in getting my old data imported. Anyway, I finished the upgrade and started Entourage. I updated my keychains. I had 4 email accounts on my old data including one that had previously been hooked to an exchange server. Even though I have not been connected to the exchange server for 6 months, I had kept the account as I wanted to keep the emails and contact info that was on my computer. I have continually gotten dialog boxes saying that the root certificate could not be found and another asking for my password even though I did not want to access the server any more. I decided to delete the account to stop this but did not realize that I would no longer see any of the folders that contained thousands of emails and my contact info. I do have a backed up version of my Microsoft User Data folder but really do not want to go back through the very painful process of upgrading the SW and potentially losing the emails that have downloaded from the past few days from several POP servers.

Is there any way to get the folders back that contained the emails from the account I deleted?

Please help!!

 

[Diane Ross]

You selected POP but then you mention Exchange. Do you have both? It's hard
to advise without the correct info.

 

[Dean_Madsen]

I have 3 active POP accounts that I use daily. I also have an Exchange account that is not active (I haven't had access to the Exchange server for several months) but I didn't realize that if I deleted the account that I would lose the folders on Entourage with my old emails and my contact info.

 

[Diane Ross]

I have 3 active POP accounts that I use daily. I also have an Exchange account
that is not active (I haven't had access to the Exchange server for several
months) but I didn't realize that if I deleted the account that I would lose
the folders on Entourage with my old emails and my contact info.

When you delete an Exchange or IMAP account, it deletes those folders.
Deleting POP accounts does not delete folders because the messages are
stored in folders "On My Computer" and not on a server. The only way to get
those folders back is to add the account and let it sync back up. If you can
access your Exchange account outside of Entourage where you could archive
some of the data that would help. The Exchange folks can help with that.

You mentioned you had 26GB. That is HUGE! I highly suggest you archive some
of this mail.

Archive Your Data
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/database/archive.html>

Let me know if I can help with your transition.

 

[Dean_Madsen]

I don't have access to the exchange server anymore (ex-employer). I have been able to read emails that were downloaded to the folders on my Entourage desktop even after I left the server. I do have a back-up of my Microsoft User Data that I made before I did the 2008 upgrade. Can I get the old email off that? Would I have to go back to 2004 and put my old Microsoft User Data file in the top level of the documents folder and then do the 2008 upgrade without deleting the account? Is there any other way to retrieve just the desidered folders with emails and contacts from that old Microsoft User Data file without going though the upgrade process again?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Diane Ross]

I don't have access to the exchange server anymore (ex-employer). I have been
able to read emails that were downloaded to the folders on my Entourage
desktop even after I left the server. I do have a back-up of my Microsoft User
Data that I made before I did the 2008 upgrade. Can I get the old email off
that? Would I have to go back to 2004 and put my old Microsoft User Data file
in the top level of the documents folder and then do the 2008 upgrade without
deleting the account? Is there any other way to retrieve just the desidered
folders with emails and contacts from that old Microsoft User Data file
without going though the upgrade process again?

If the mails are in folders "On My Computer" you shouldn't have to enter the
account for Exchange.

Do you still have Office 2004 installed? If not, if you go back and
re-install it will mess up your Office 2008 fonts.

Do you have another volume that you could install Office 2004 and export
those old emails as Entourage archive (.rge) files or as MBOX files? It
would be a lot easier to clean up the data there than try to upgrade then
clean up. You can import these files into Office 2008 without the lengthy
upgrade process. I'm afraid that after you import such a large database you
are going to end up with a corrupt database and will have to start over
anyway. Rebuilding does not always fix a bad upgrade.

FWIW....

You can have multiple Identity folders in the Microsoft User Data folder.
You would need to have Office 2004 Identities folder and Office 2008
Identities folder. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "top level." Your
Identity MUST be in the correct Identities folder.

You can have both Office 2004 and Office 2008 installed and use both at the
same time. Other than the fonts issue, there is no problem going back and
installing Office 2004.

As a consultant I do this for users. Let me know if you want to farm this
out.