h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yesterday, all my e-mail vanished. I've no idea where it went, nor can I get it back. I suspect it might have gone when I was in the middle of doing something I thought had hung, and I shut it down in the middle of it.

The information is still there, but it seems to have lost all details of me having an account, so I can't send and recieve. It's all rather frustrating. Roy has been totally unsympathetic and has just been telling me that Apple shouldn't be allowed to sell computers to the public because they are such rubbish. All guaranteed to make me feel better.

Traveller in Time not much help
"Just finding my way on the iMac. Have not a clue how the filesystem works, let alone how to restore specific databases.

If you say the data is still there, I would suggest to copy it and store it under a different name for the time beeing. If there is a solution to restore it as the mail database again, more recent changes can make the already defective file even worse. "

ZSF, how much of your email programme can you still see?

I have difficulty getting in to mine from time to time, and have now got the original programme backed up on to disk, and my email addresses stored elsewhere.

If you can get in to your programme, can you re-enter your details and see if it will accept it then? I'm far from an expert but I have to disagree with Roy, very strongly, as you might know. It is more likely to be your Email programme than anything to do with the Mac, which can cope with more stuff than a PC.

If you are stuck ask the Mac bods on h2g2 at:

Mac Users A690653

Websailor

Have you ever tried the mail2web site?
http://www.mail2web.com/

I remember at one point when I was on dial-up, my email programme seemed to be stuck on a particular message, and I couldn't get past it: the customer service at my ISP advised me to go to the mail2web site and delete the problem email there. It worked, but I've never used it since.

Azara

Hi, TiT, Websailor and Azara.

Funnily enough, I still have a couple of messages on the Mail system which came with the computer - I imported the Entourage mailbox which has gone missing - so I can still send and receive. I suppose I could set up the e-mail address again and continue to use Entourage and just accept the fact that my messages have gone.

As much as anything, I was miffed at Roy's response (I quite agree with you on this one, Websailor).

Probably the safest thing I could do would be to use my .Mac account, however it's not as easy to manipulate messages on this - I can't move things en bloc and I'm not sure that I can set up rules to send things to partioular files. One thing that Entourage was particularly good at was rules - all my h2g2 e-group stuff went straight into the right files, which meant I wasn't overwhelmed by the numbers of incoming e-mails.

I did go to the Mac Users site and I have some advice, although I'm not sure that anything is going to come of it. I'll wait until the weekend before trying anything new. I still have my cough and am feeling under the weather.

TiT - if I can find the files again (I'm trying to find one particularly important group of files at the moment, although at the moment, it hasn't turned up any of the files) I think your idea of copying and saving the files is a really good one.

Wish me luck!

Azara,

That service looks interesting. Again, I'll investigate over the weekend. Thanks!

ZSF,

I do hope you will be feeling better soon. I have been walking with a stick, or rather hobbling the last ten days or so with sciatica and it's driving me mad.

Computers are sensitive things. You have to talk nicely to them, and Macs have a sense of humour too. I am sure you will find your lost stuff eventually. I agree with copy and paste anything you want to keep or refer back to, somewhere else entirely. I lost a whole bunch of emails the last time my programme crashed. I got my son to put the programme on a disk so I can reload and dump the old programme. but couldn't rescue the emails. I also export my email addresses to elswhere on the computer, and print a hard copy of them just in case!

Perhaps the bad vibes coming from Roy are upsetting your Mac Don't tell him or that will give him more ammunition, and he will think you are corresponding with a

and hope you feel better soon. Best not to try anything till you feel on top of things again.


Websailor

Hello I'm sure it's all there somewhere, lurking.

What Operating System are you running on your Mac? and which email application were you using when it all went Foom! ?

Lx