User lost notes from calendar

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
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Guest

One of our laptop users makes daily notes in Outlook Calendar to track what
he did and when. A few weeks ago the notes "disappeared" and I can't seem to
find a thread with simliar problems that would help me get his notes back.

He uses Outlook 2002, with no exchange server, so there is no backup store
for that type of information. The laptop is also not backed up, so I can't
recover previous notes. (I have taken care of that problem, he now can back
up, but that doesn't solve the immediate problem, just makes future problems
easier to solve...sigh...)
 
Check to see whether AutoArchive was turned on for the Calendar folder. If so, the items should be in the designated archive .pst file.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
No luck. There is a large archive.pst file, but all it SEEMS to contain is an
entry for every day since Oct 2004 saying "Danny's Daily Log". Clicking on
that entry brings up an appointment that then is blank. I think the files
size of 25,125k is just from all of the blank entries. I tried opening random
entries for the past few years, all of them blank.

If I open one of these occurances, and enter something (test) and then save
it, they show up when I reopen the file.

And since this is all the laptop is used for, when I restore from archive, I
get no email, drafts or such to show if anything was actually restored.

Anything else I can try?
 
Well, those sure sound like the notes you described and that they are indeed in an archive. I don't know of any scenario in which the AutoArchive process would remove data from individual items, though. You might try running Scanpst.exe against that file. If that doesn't work, I hate to say it, but maybe there's more to the issue than the user is telling you?

IN any case, you probably will want to turn off AutoArchive for that Calendar folder.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
Scanpst ran without errors.

I'm going to get with the user to again have them tell me what they were
doing when they lost the files. These are field guys, who use a PC very
little. So I don't have much hope that they remember something like :delete
these files. Then when they discovered the problem, going back and putting
the recurring appointment back in.

Thanks for the help. From now on we'll try to get them to backup regularly.
I have also suggested a bound notebook and pen to keep work notes, just using
the laptop to access engineering drawings for the water lines and such.

I've always had visions of this laptop "accidentally" falling into a creek
while they are working...grin...
 
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