Disappearing Office data

[rick]

Since installing OS X 10.5 a lot of my Office files have had the data
erased. My Word documents and Excel spreadsheets are still there, but
do not still have the actual data when I open them. They are blank.

A friend told me that this is a problem with MS Office based Macro
viruses and suggested that I run a virus scanning package. I tried
ClamXav but it would not run with 10.5.

I have lost a lot of important data; any suggestions?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

This sounds very unusual.

More information, please.

What type of installation did you use for OS 10. 5?

How are you opening the files? Double-click or File | Open? What
version of Office?

 

[rick]

Thanks. Any help will be appreciated.

What type of installation did you use for OS 10. 5?
MAC OS X V10.5 RETAIL installation of Leopard.

How are you opening the files? Double-click or File | Open?
I have tried both double-clicking and File>Open. The documents open,
but the data is gone.

What version of Office?
Microsoft Office:Mac 2004 Student and Teacher Edition.

 

[Diane Ross]

What type of installation did you use for OS 10. 5?
MAC OS X V10.5 RETAIL installation of Leopard.

You really need to use proper quoting. It's impossible to see who said what.
If you don't understand how, please ask.

We need to know if you used "Archive & Install", "Erase & Install" or
upgrade install. Here's what each method does:

Options to Install Leopard
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/leo_options.html>

Upgrades seem to have the most problems. There are so many differences
between Tiger and Leopard that old Tiger files can cause horrible problems
in Leopard.

 

[rick]

You really need to use proper quoting. It's impossible to see who said what.
If you don't understand how, please ask.

We need to know if you used "Archive & Install", "Erase & Install" or
upgrade install. Here's what each method does:

Options to Install Leopard
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/leo_options.html>

Upgrades seem to have the most problems. There are so many differences
between Tiger and Leopard that old Tiger files can cause horrible problems
in Leopard.

I am not 100% sure, but I think it was "Upgrade Mac OS X". But, there
is a "System Folder (from old Mac)" on the drive so it could have been
"Archive & Install. I know that it was not "Erase & Install".

Please enlighten me on the proper quoting method.

 

[Diane Ross]

I am not 100% sure, but I think it was "Upgrade Mac OS X". But, there
is a "System Folder (from old Mac)" on the drive so it could have been
"Archive & Install. I know that it was not "Erase & Install".

Please enlighten me on the proper quoting method.

Jolly's links are for how where your reply should go, but in your case you
were not including any quote levels. eg:

one quote level

Entourage does this automatically. When you reply you can select by
highlighting the part of the text you want to reply to. (Normally you don't
quote back the entire message) the when you select reply it will put the
quote level appropriate for that part of the message. This way instead of
this:

What type of installation did you use for OS 10. 5?
MAC OS X V10.5 RETAIL installation of Leopard.

You would see this:

What type of installation did you use for OS 10. 5?

MAC OS X V10.5 RETAIL installation of Leopard.

Now you can see the first line was asked by the previous author and your
reply is below.

The attribution part is set in preferences. In the menu bar under Entourage,
select Preferences. Reply is under "Mail & News Preferences". See this page
for help and screen shots of the options.

Reply <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/reply.html#reply2>

For lists like this, it's best to reply below. This way the conversation can
flow normally. For business or personal use, many users like to top post
with the entire message below. This is best explained by this example

Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.

why is top posting frowned upon?

My suggestion is to set Entourage to bottom post and use the script
mentioned in the FAQ (above link) to reply above when needed. This gives you
the best of both worlds.

All of this is assuming you are using Entourage to reply to the news
messages. In Google, you might need to edit/delete part of the message
manually for clarity. It does default to quoting the previous message with
the cursor below for your reply.

Personally, I like to use Entourage for the newsgroup. It's not the most
robust newsreader, but for the Microsoft newsgroups, it works great. You can
use Entourage's features to view your mail from the newsgroup and you don't
have to go to your browser to see the messages. Follow the directions here:

How to subscribe to the Microsoft Entourage newsgroup

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/support_options/subnews.html>

Let me know if you have further questions.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I am not 100% sure, but I think it was "Upgrade Mac OS X". But, there
is a "System Folder (from old Mac)" on the drive so it could have been
"Archive & Install. I know that it was not "Erase & Install".

Can you create a new user account in OS X and see if that data appears
there? That will help identify the source of the problem. Also, if you
can test a problem file on a different computer, it would be good.

 

[rick]

Can you create a new user account in OS X and see if that data appears
there?  That will help identify the source of the problem.  Also, if you
can test a problem file on a different computer, it would be good.

The data still is missing when I use a different Mac. And it not make
a difference when creating a new account either.

 

[CyberTaz]

The data still is missing when I use a different Mac. And it not make
a difference when creating a new account either.

As Daiya first replied, this is a highly unusual occurrence... Upgrading the
OS *or* programs should *not* even touch the user-created files. If it does
it would either delete or corrupt the files rendering them unusable, but
certainly shouldn't empty their content while leaving the files otherwise
intact. As a matter of fact - in my mere 27 years of experience - I've
*never* seen this happen.

Although rare it is possible that a [macro] virus may be involved - this is
exactly the type of things that may malcontents design viruses to do. Those
that affect docs shouldn't affect Excel files & vice-versa, though. In order
to accomplish such a chore it would have to truly be a virus which would
trigger the OS to prompt you to approve installation as though it were an
application - Do you remember any such prompt?

To help narrow down the possibilities go to Word> Preferences> Security to
be certain that there is a check in the box to "Warn before opening a file
that contains macros". Do the same in Excel, then reopen one of the problem
files to see if a dialog appears warning about a macro.

Although ClamXav still has not been released for Leopard there are several
which have. VirusScan v8.6 as well as a few others, but, unfortunately, they
aren't free.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[rick]

The data still is missing when I use a different Mac. And it not make
a difference when creating a new account either.

As Daiya first replied, this is a highly unusual occurrence... Upgrading the
OS *or* programs should *not* even touch the user-created files. If it does
it would either delete or corrupt the files rendering them unusable, but
certainly shouldn't empty their content while leaving the files otherwise
intact. As a matter of fact - in my mere 27 years of experience - I've
*never* seen this happen.

Although rare it is possible that a [macro] virus may be involved - this is
exactly the type of things that may malcontents design viruses to do. Those
that affect docs shouldn't affect Excel files & vice-versa, though. In order
to accomplish such a chore it would have to truly be a virus which would
trigger the OS to prompt you to approve installation as though it were an
application - Do you remember any such prompt?

To help narrow down the possibilities go to Word> Preferences> Security to
be certain that there is a check in the box to "Warn before opening a file
that contains macros". Do the same in Excel, then reopen one of the problem
files to see if a dialog appears warning about a macro.

Although ClamXav still has not been released for Leopard there are several
which have. VirusScan v8.6 as well as a few others, but, unfortunately, they
aren't free.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Sorry if this does not follow the proper quoting protocol, but I do
not use Entourage. But I really do appreciate the advice.

I do not recall allowing such an installation. I am pretty careful
about that stuff, but I guess anything is possible.

I checked both Word and Excel. Both have the Warning box checked. I
have had that warning in the past, but I do not allow macros.

But I have noticed several things that I cannot explain:

1. Something was eating up a lot of disk space. I could "lose" 5 GB of
space in a matter of minutes, and then resatrt and it was mostly back.

2. My Office documents opening very slowly at times. Normally, a short
letter in Word will open in a blink. But every once in a while that
same document takes several seconds to open. It is very noticeable.

3. I do not know why, but I now get a lot of prompts about the "Normal
Template" in Word.

4. I had a lot of .wmv files that stopped working for unknown reasons.
I trashed all of them.

There may be other anomalies, but you don't really notice some stuff
until after it happens. I am willing to pay to have a virus free Mac.
Thanks for the information on VirusScan v8.6.

I am also waiting t upgrade to Office 2008. That may not help this
problem but it's worth a shot.

One other thing, after I created the new account I had to enter my
password to start my Mac. I deleted that account, but I still have to
enter my password every time I start mu Mac. Is there a way I can go
back to just starting my Mac without having to enter my password? It
is a pain.

Thanks again for everyone's comments.

 

[Diane Ross]

I am also waiting t upgrade to Office 2008. That may not help this
problem but it's worth a shot.

I doubt upgrading will fix your problems. It sounds like you have problems
with your system files. Did you upgrade to 10.5.1? What type of install did
you use to install Leopard? Did you run Repair Permissions from Disk
Utility?

There are 3 types of installs:

1. Upgrade Mac OS X (the default upgrade method)*
2. Archive and Install
3. Erase and Install

* Just because it's the default doesn't mean it's the best option.

This page describes what each method does:

Options to Install Leopard
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/leo_options.html>

Is there any way to backup your data to a secondary drive/partition? You
might want to wipe your drive and re-install. I know this is drastic but
might be the quickest way to resolve your problems.

One other thing, after I created the new account I had to enter my
password to start my Mac. I deleted that account, but I still have to
enter my password every time I start mu Mac. Is there a way I can go
back to just starting my Mac without having to enter my password? It
is a pain.

In System Preferences --> System --> Accounts

Click on the lock at the bottom left
Next, click on Login Options with the little house

The first popup should show Automatic login for your User. Yours is probably
set to disabled.

I have these settings;
ˆ Display login window as ˆ List of users
ˆ Show the Restart, sleep and shut down buttons
ˆ Show password hints

Click the lock when you are through.

 

[rick]

I doubt upgrading will fix your problems. It sounds like you have problems
with your system files. Did you upgrade to 10.5.1? What type of install did
you use to install Leopard? Did you run Repair Permissions from Disk
Utility?

There are 3 types of installs:

1. Upgrade Mac OS X (the default upgrade method)*
2. Archive and Install
3. Erase and Install

* Just because it's the default doesn't mean it's the best option.

This page describes what each method does:

Options to Install Leopard
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/leo_options.html>

Is there any way to backup your data to a secondary drive/partition? You
might want to wipe your drive and re-install. I know this is drastic but
might be the quickest way to resolve your problems.




In System Preferences --> System --> Accounts

Click on the lock at the bottom left
Next, click on Login Options with the little house

The first popup should show Automatic login for your User. Yours is probably
set to disabled.

I have these settings;
ˆ   Display login window as ˆ  List of users
ˆ   Show the Restart, sleep and shut down buttons
ˆ   Show password hints

Click the lock when you are through.

I installed 10.5.1 and I probably used the default. I probably did not
run Disk Repair Permissions.

Login Options worked. I knew there was a way, but I just could not
find it. I even used the Help menu but it did not list anything.
Thanks!!

Also, I have been thinking hard about what else might have been
changed to cause the disappearing data problem. I added RAM to this
Mac around the time this problem started. For the life of me I cannot
recall if I added the RAM before it started or after, but it was right
around that time.

I also started using Mozy to do off site back ups around this time. I
have had a lot of trouble with Mozy and maybe that has something to do
with the issue.

Thanks again!

 

[Diane Ross]

I installed 10.5.1 and I probably used the default. I probably did not
run Disk Repair Permissions.

It's possible your data is still there and if you do an "Archive & Install"
you might be able to get it back.

Also, I have been thinking hard about what else might have been
changed to cause the disappearing data problem. I added RAM to this
Mac around the time this problem started. For the life of me I cannot
recall if I added the RAM before it started or after, but it was right
around that time.

This doesn't sound like a RAM problem.

I also started using Mozy to do off site back ups around this time. I
have had a lot of trouble with Mozy and maybe that has something to do
with the issue.

Mozy could very well be a culprit, but if the title is there, the info
should be there also.

 

[CyberTaz]

I'm thinking along the same lines as Diane about this thing called "Mozy" -
about which I know absolutely nothing, BTW

However, the thought occurred to me that you might be opening files created
by *it* rather than the actual Word docs - I've seen backup software that
creates "empty shells" with the data for them encoded in a master file. The
individual files are represented with their appropriate icons & they retain
their identities for recognition purposes and their data content is
reinserted when the shells are properly restored. Could something like that
be going on here?

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[rick]

I'm thinking along the same lines as Diane about this thing called "Mozy" -
about which I know absolutely nothing, BTW

However, the thought occurred to me that you might be opening files created
by *it* rather than the actual Word docs - I've seen backup software that
creates "empty shells" with the data for them encoded in a master file. The
individual files are represented with their appropriate icons & they retain
their identities for recognition purposes and their data content is
reinserted when the shells are properly restored. Could something like that
be going on here?

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

I will try to retrieve the document(s) from Mozy to see if that is the
problem. But, it will not be until next week due to a death in the
family.