external drive slows down Outlook 2003

[cougar78]

I have a WD usb 1TB drive. I use Win XP with Office 2003. In outlook 2003, when I click on messages, especially the most recent/new message. My computer accesses my external drive for 15-30 seconds before displaying the message.

I've been unable to articulate the right question searching google. So, with nothing in Outlook referencing any need to access the external drive, i.e. .OST or .PST not stored on it. How can I stop Outlook from searching the external drive when I read a message within the .OST, which is stored in the default path on the C drive.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Disconect the external drive.

Are you using any kind of backup software with the exsternal drive? If so it may be pulling Outlook data for the backup. In which case its pulling the needed data every time you update your inbox to maintain a recent backup.

 

[nineball9]

Outlook - Files - Data File Management might have some info. Do you have auto archive on (archiving to the removable drive)?

A long shot, but is any of your email/antivirus software on the removable drive?

 

[corkyg]

Part of the problem is Outlook itself. It is much more than a mail handling program - it is a complete personal assistant and has many functions.

I use Office 2007, but deliberately did not install Outlook. It is a nuisance that pervasively gets into every program's shorts.

I also have external drives in three systems - and they are never turned on unless I have a need for them.

And, the prospect of your AVG program doing a virus scan when Outlook is activated of possible email storage locations is real.

 

[RebateMonger]

You said, ".OST". You are getting your data from an MS Exchange Server? Do you have plenty of free space on the drive where your OST is?

 

[cougar78]

Hey everyone, thanks for the feedback let me address each:

mpil: I prefer not to turn off the drive because I store some larger files I access and there is a task to backup "my documents" folder every night to it. I'm not pulling backups from the external drive. My backups are run from a windows task to a server not the external. However, I do have a task that only backs up my "my documents" folder (no .pst or .ost resides there).

Nineball9: I do not auto archive anything to the external drive, no email/antivirus does not reside on it. Also, the data management of my outlook is local within the c drive.

Corkyg: I do not use AVG, this is a corp environment and for simplicity I have to use Outlook and I use Norton corp antivirus. As I said nothing within outlook should look or reside on the external drive.

RebateMonger: Yes, my .OST from the exchange server. Yes I have plenty of space on my C drive. Over 20gig free.

I can tell you that I recently gave an external drive to someone else to use and he has started encountering the same thing.

I know it has to be something in Outlook but I can't find the answer yet.

 

[corkyg]

Does your corp environment have a hidden system monitoring feature that keeps track of official vs. personal use email? It could also relate to Norton Security monitoring Outlook.

 

[cougar78]

Corkyg: Another good try but I am the IT and no there is nothing that is monitoring. We only use the Norton Anti-virus and not security suite.

As you can see this an odd issue that is still an annoyance thus far.

Please let me know if you have any other suggestions or questions about the environment.
What I will tell you is, in regards to security, very little (an issue I'm slowly working on in the next year).

 

[RebateMonger]

Pretty weird. I guess you could enable Auditing and see what account is looking at the external drive and what folders it's looking at.

That somebody else had the same problem with the drive is really strange. Are you sure the drive isn't having problems?

 

[corkyg]

OK - see if it happens with Norton turned off.

 

[cougar78]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Pretty weird. I guess you could enable Auditing and see what account is looking at the external drive and what folders it's looking at.

That somebody else had the same problem with the drive is really strange. Are you sure the drive isn't having problems?

Yes I'm sure, they are using a complete seperate drive. In fact, they have a seagate external drive vs. my WD.