Re: HELP Entourage Compacting failed. A read/write error has occurred (-40)

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

On 2007-06-07 04:57:11 -0500, tina.herringshaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx said:

I had just finished upgrading my computer iBookG4 OSX 10.4.9. I was
writing an email, tried to send and it froze, then entourage quit.
When I tried to re-start entourage this error message came up saying
it could not access data.

Clicked Ok - which lead to a re-build screen. I first cancelled which
lead to this error meassage-

Compacting failed. A read/write error has occurred (-40)

Ouch. This error means the Entourage database file on disk is likely corrupt. Not a good sign. : (

I tried again to do a re-build and it couldnt so it tried a complex re-
biuld which also failed and the error message appeared again.

Bad news. I think that was your last resort in terms of what Entourage itself can do to help you out of this jam.

I have tried to first aid to repair disk but this option was not
available, so I repaired permissions instead, but this made no
difference.

You'll need to start up on a Mac OS X system CD and run Disk Utility from the installer menu bar to Verify the startup drive. I would *definitely* do that if I were you. There's a small chance you can use Disk Utility's Repair function to recover from the error.

Can anyone suggest what I should do. I need my email desperately and I
dont have a back-up, it's all just in entourage folders. Can anyone
help please.

As hard as I am sure this is for you to hear right now, if you don't already have automated daily backups in place, now is the time to invest in a solution that will ensure that this never happens again to you. Do some research on backup utilities (we have plenty of good discussions in the comp.sys.mac.app and comp.sys.mac.system news groups about them (ignore the very latest thread "backup utilities" started by "dorayme"). Personally, I think Retrospect, while being a complex tool, is one of the best in terms of features, flexibility, and robustness, even today - and I'm sure others here will agree with me on that.

It's a good idea to plan your backup strategy so that it is:

* automated and unattended - it should happen on a schedule without your interaction
* flexible - so that you can backup any files or folders, on multiple machines over the network if needed, to a hard drive, to tape, to an FTP server, etc.
* incremental - so that only changed files are backed up each session
* snapshot-capable - so that multiple snapshots of changed files are kept, allowing you to roll back changes to any point in time
* rotatable - so that you can keep a backup set off-site or in a fireproof safe at all times, in case of a catastrophe

Then purchase and set up your backup utility, run some tests to make sure you can restore your data, and stick with it religiously.


--
JR

.

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