Help I think I caused problems on my dad computer

[Daniel son of Welshwizard]

Please help, I have been trying to get access to dads business computer to try and keep things moving while he is unable to, my problems is he placed all of his email, and business referances behind some sort of pass word and encryption system, well at each password I back the system up then when I had a lockout that crashed reloaded, I now have been able to get at the records and been able to answer some of the outstanding stuff that has come in, but I have a problem, his email records have grown to over 20000 and when I checked them out each email has at least 10 multi entries,I think some how I cuased a dup evry time I reloaded, is there any way I can delete any entry that has occured more than once without having to do it one at a time, ( I don't won't to upset him at this time and really don't look forward to removing 18000+ entries the hard way)

[This message has been edited by Daniel son of Welshwizard (edited 10-24-1999).]

[Dominus]

I don't mean to be disrespectful, but could you please clarify that a little? I'd like to help, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Try re-typing that whole thing, step-by-step.

[Susan]

I think what he is saying is that every time he tried to bypass the password and backed up the mail, he created a duplicate of all the mail, ten fold.

How can he delete all the duplicate entries without doing each and every delete individually?

The only thing I can think of is if your Dad had any backups other than the one's you have written to, you could then reload those backups and start from the beginning.

Check his floppies, tape devices or secondary hard drives.

[jeana]

DSOWW,

Which operating system (Windows? Linux?) is he using? Which e-mail program is he using?
Do you know how he encrypted his data?

Is there a chance that each of the messages or each set of duplicates is stored in its own file?
In that case, you could find one of those cleaner programs that erases duplicate files Sorry, since I don't use such programs often I don't the perfect program to recommend, although I recall that Rosenthal Utilities had a nice program "Un_Dup" that might do the trick. I can't remember if it was a fully functional version was available as shareware, but here goes:
http://slonet.org/~doren/ )

I also believe McAfee had a freeware cleaner that tried to leave originals and backups alone, but erased all duplicates beyond the second copy. http://www.mcafee.com

Before using a duplicate-erasing program I would back up the computer entirely! I mean it! Also, if you can, try not to erase duplicates of anything outside of the folder/directory where the emails are stored.
Otherwise, you might erase important backup files.

[Pantion]

From what I THINK I understand is that every time you get in all the mail doubles. Hmm...
I can't help you out unless you give more info. Operating System, mail program, security program, etc.

But maybe the backup program is continuosly taking the same mails and not checking for duplicates. It only puts everything again making the list grow and grow. If you can check the startup settings and check if anything is wrong in it or if you were modifing some option before you lock-up that should be ON or OFF.

[This message has been edited by Pantion (edited 10-24-1999).]

[Daniel son of Welshwizard]

Hi all
(1) he went back to windows 98
(2) express 5
(3) don't know what encryption but it had back doors that allowed me to get the info to keep company going at tick over till he can take over.
(4) the problem is each email has at least 10 copies of the original.
Jeana will try the Macafee download but backup first. fingers crossed it works other wise I have a long job deleting each dupe one at a time.
Daniel
P.S.
thankyou for the help.
Thanks Susan got the original Zip back up that I used before going at the system, I deleted all then reloaded the back only have one copy of each email just have to add the one's that came in since, thanks all, now I know why dad always sead this was the best BBS on the net.

[This message has been edited by Daniel son of Welshwizard (edited 10-24-1999).]