to the network people

[dieselboy]

i know there are some clever network people on here, so wonder if you could figure this one out...

im at a company that has shared network drives, on of these being a u:\ which is mapped to a server which is also the print server.
someone has a .pst file on this which is 11gb and it has errors as its playing up anyway.

so, i think the best thing to do, is copy it locally to a temporary pc and then run scanpst.exe to fix the errors. OR copy it to the same folder on the server, and fix the errors this way (i need a backup incase i loose all the emails as its happened to me before and i dont want it happening again!)

but whenever i try to add this to outlook, copy it, do anything with it it takes down EVERYONES pc here in the office.

the reception IP phone system crashes, everyones outlook hangs, a colleague couldnt turn his pc as it hung when loading up, my outlook goes really slow. people complain they cant print and when i go to the pc that is using the drive the whole pc is hanging. this is a fresh built pc, and even did it with the old pc and another fresh built pc.

what could be doing this?

exhange is on a different server eg server16. print and network drive is server1 there is a whole load of other servers too.

i suspect some router or switch config is wrong or not setup propperly.. is there anyway that it could be broadcasting packets? as ive an idea a broadcast for this long would take down pcs

?

[dieselboy]

ps. these people are hedgefund managers (stockbrokers) so soon as something dont work, they r loosing money.. and most of them r moody

[dirtydog]

yeah does sound like a switch config to me. some have features to help with packet errors

[fergus]

hedgefund mangers- the sort of uckers who buy oil for a profit and to keep the price high?

let em wait

[MattF]

Just give the tw@t who has an eleven gig pst file a good beating. It'll do sod all for the network prob, but he deserves it anyway.

[dieselboy]

lol.
the bloke dealing with this network prob is a right un-approachble sod. just bit my supervisors head off for asking him a question!

apparently outlook 2003 can have .pst's up to 20gb.. but thats not all.
some people here have 800,000 emails.
a re-profile takes the rest of the afternoon to update the ost file. its a joke!!

plus with these network issues, it takes so long, it doesnt actually happen.

we tried to load up explorer on pc upstairs to lookup something, it just hung. so i unplugged the network cable and the pc immediatly sprung to life.
does this look like bad switch config?

[dieselboy]

Just give the tw@t who has an eleven gig pst file a good beating. It'll do sod all for the network prob, but he deserves it anyway.

rude as well he is.
you know the propper toff attitude lol i think its funny tbh.
the women here are gorgeous

[MattF]

apparently outlook 2003 can have .pst's up to 20gb.. but thats not all. some people here have 800,000 emails.
a re-profile takes the rest of the afternoon to update the ost file. its a joke!!

You really ought to make them use e-mail clients that store files in a proper fashion. Foxpro db's have always been sod all use at storing even small amounts of data securely, so expecting an 11GB db to survive is expecting way too much. They should be stored as flatfiles, not in a b@stardised db format.

we tried to load up explorer on pc upstairs to lookup something, it just hung. so i unplugged the network cable and the pc immediatly sprung to life.
does this look like bad switch config?

It could honestly be anything. I assume there are no hubs in the loop, and it is switches all through? Are the switches managed or unmanaged? Have you tried copying the file from the server via another method than Windoze's own network methods? A file that size will take forever via M$'s own network methods for copying.

[dieselboy]

how would i know what format the db is in? im expecting it to be standard .pst format which is ascii i believe now...

they better not have any hubs here, what sort of monkeys uses hubs now days lol

i havnt tried any other way of copying the file, other than cmd i dont have any other way

[MattF]

how would i know what format the db is in? im expecting it to be standard .pst format which is ascii i believe now...

As far as I know, they still use the same cr@p method as always. Simplest way to check is open a, (small), .pst file with wordpad. If the text is readable, it's ascii, and if not, it's a binary file.

they better not have any hubs here, what sort of monkeys uses hubs now days lol

It happens. There are a couple of occasions where I've found one stashed somewhere, still in use.

i havnt tried any other way of copying the file, other than cmd i dont have any other way

Just trying to think offhand what other methods you can use in M$. I usually use scp, but that's with Samba servers, so that method isn't natively supported for your situation. You say you've tried a direct disk/disk copy on the server itself?

[jmc]

Trying to open an 11GB pst file over a network link? What speed is the link?!

I can't say I'd put something like this down to switches being misconfigured.

Any PST over a couple of GB is asking for trouble, do a local copy (out of hours or direct from the server if necessary), scan it, open it and split it into a few more managable ones or get the company to invest in a proper archiving solution like Enterprise Vault!

[dieselboy]

ive tried a direct disk copy to the same folder by pressing the ctrl key so it makes 'copy of...' and that was working but it just took hours and hours, and a colleague tried to do something with the file on another machine and then it couldnt read it and stopped copying.

the file is on a server, so ive never actually logged onto the server to copy it. ive only done it by mapping the drive and using another pc to do it that way.

thanks for all your brainstorming btw

ive only been here a short while, this is my 2nd week.
ive asked about VPNing into network later and copying it / fixing it whist in the comfort of my own home.. i get home at 7pm already if i leave before 6.

[MattF]

ive tried a direct disk copy to the same folder by pressing the ctrl key so it makes 'copy of...' and that was working but it just took hours and hours, and a colleague tried to do something with the file on another machine and then it couldnt read it and stopped copying.

You want to be logged on locally to the server itself to do a disk to disk copy.

[jmc]

You want to be logged on locally to the server itself to do a disk to disk copy.

Yep, do this. Takes any network issues out of the equation. Fire up task manager and keep an eye on the server too while you do it.

[dieselboy]

an RDP session would be ok i suppose

im not even going near that server now because even when i log in it sends back email alerts.

ill let you know what they find :p