ChronoSync - Corrupted Entourage 2008 DB

[HCRX]

I was hoping someone might have some ideas on how to recover or at
least prevent a recurrence of my loss of a week's worth of Entourage
data.

I use ChronoSync 3.3.6 to mirror my MacPro and MacBook Pro. Both run
Leopard 10.5.2. I have been traveling for a week and went to sync the
laptop to the desktop today. I typically sync the entire Documents
folder which includes Entourage and the Office 2008 identities.

For some reason today, it failed to copy over all of the changes and
instead copied the desktop database over the laptop version. Although
I had the ChronoSync setup to archive any changes, that too failed to
work.

Unless I am mistaken, in Microsoft's infinite wisdom, it does not
maintain any form of history of database changes in Entourage.

Does anyone have any suggestions aside from the obvious? Thank you.

Joe

 

[Diane Ross]

Does anyone have any suggestions aside from the obvious? Thank you.

Sorry, there isn't much you can do. Moving/copying the database when it is
open can be tricky.

I suggest that if your mail is important that you use an independent backup.
Set Mail "leave on server" for at least 3 days to cover you and CC yourself
on sent mail.

Entourage and Time-Machine like backup (creates chronological backup of
Identity can be used by both Tiger and Leopard)

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/entourage_and_time_machine.html>

Alternative method to use Entourage and Time Machine (does a once a day or
whatever time period you select)

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/alternative_method_to_use_entourage_
and_time_machine.html>

 

[HCRX]

Sorry, there isn't much you can do. Moving/copying the database when it is
open can be tricky.

I suggest that if your mail is important that you use an independent backup.
Set Mail "leave on server" for at least 3 days to cover you and CC yourself
on sent mail.

Entourage and Time-Machine like backup (creates chronological backup of
Identity can be used by both Tiger and Leopard)

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/entourage_and_time_machine.html>

Alternative method to use Entourage and Time Machine (does a once a day or
whatever time period you select)

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/alternative_method_to_use_ento...
and_time_machine.html>

Thanks Diane. I use Time Machine, when I am connected at home, but
not when traveling. I might just have to create a backup routine
using a USB key or small hard drive.

To be honest I would love to use another product instead of Entourage,
but nothing I have researched has the features and once you use
Outlook in the PC world it is hard to go backwards in terms of feature
sets. It would be nice though if Microsoft would actually incorporate
some of the features that third party companies add as enhancements.

Sigh....

 

[Diane Ross]

Thanks Diane. I use Time Machine, when I am connected at home, but
not when traveling. I might just have to create a backup routine
using a USB key or small hard drive.

Some people actually use external drive for Microsoft User Data folder with
alias in Documents folder.

One user explains how they use this method:

I keep my Microsoft User Data folder on an external pocket firewire drive (a
large capacity USB thumb-drive will suffice if both machines have USB 2.0)
and just keep aliases to it in my Documents folder of all the machines I use
Entourage on (laptop, desktop and occasionally other machines I sit down in
front of for a few hours). Works like a charm and gives me an identical
environment on every machine.

This might not be what you want unless you do this daily, but the concept is
useful for travel.