Strange 'Entire Message' search problems on cloned external drive only

Question

Hello,
I'm having some strange problems with the 'Entire Message' spotlight style search function in Mail.
There are various threads on the forums about a similar problem, as can be found here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9450686#9450686
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7286254
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7540966
However, here's the twist – it works perfectly fine on my computer, a late 2006 MBP with Tiger, but the 'Entire Message' search ONLY doesn't work when booting from the external hard drive, which is an EXACT clone using smart copy with super duper. Everything else works fine!
To give an example, when I type in a client's second name in Mail on my computer's HD, with 'Entire Message' enabled 400+ emails appear, when I type it in when booting from the external HD clone there was around 10 emails on the first attempt (whilst Mail was open at the same time) and there were 0 on my second clone attempt, whilst Mail and all other applications were closed. Enabling 'From' and 'To' works fine, just not the 'Entire Message' search.
I really need this critical function to work, as I'm about to loose my old computer and use it on a daily bases.
So any ideas anyone?
TIA
Message was edited by: Scottishengineer

Answer 1

...
There's an interesting thread there:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1366101
down at the bottom there's this post by the bryceman, that sums it all up for people that don't want to fiddle around with the Terminal:
+"Thanks Julien, that Launch Services put me in the right direction too and now my Leopard Mail Entire Message Search is FIXED!!!+
+My Original Post is here:+
+http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7462907#7462907+
+Posted by: DaveC+
+This is a known issue. Check out:+
+http://www.betalogue.com/2008/02/25/mac-os-x-105-tip-repairing-broken-spotlight- searches-in-mail/+
+http://www.betalogue.com/2008/03/28/mac-os-x-105-broken-spotlight-indexing-for-m ail-messages-caused-by-presence-of-older-mail-application/+
+Thanks Dave. I went to Betalogue and went through all the posts and I finally found a way to fix the Search Entire Message Spotlight problem in Apple Mail - at least it worked for me. I have been trying to fix this with all sorts of solutions for months and it turns out it was related to a problem with the Launch Services Database. I confirmed this by looking inside my user/library/mail folder and seeing that inside each Mailbox folder, the sub mailboxes all had standard folder icons and not the inbox tray style icons.+
+Note that you can easily fix this through Terminal Commands, and not all the following steps are completely necessary, but there are many people looking at these threads that want to just push buttons...+
+== So here are my simple steps to fixing Apple Mail Search ==+
+1. Attach and turn on any external hard drives you have that may have a copy of Mail.app on them+
+2. Delete all OLD copies of Mail.app that you can find (don't worry about Time Machine), but make sure you keep the latest version of Mail.app in your working Applications folder.+
+~ This is so that the LaunchServices database won't easily become corrupt again+
+3. Install the latest version of Onyx - free to use and download from www.macupdate.com+
+~ I suggest Onyx, because some people don't want to mess with the Terminal.+
+4. Quit all open applications and run Onyx (it will want to check your Hard Drive etc...that's OK).+
+5. Go to the Maintenance pane and then the Rebuild tab and select only the LaunchServices box. Click Execute.+
+~ This should fix the primary problem with searches+
+6. When that process finishes, select only the Mail's Envelope Index box. Click Execute.+
+~ This should fix related problems with other searches+
+7. When that process finishes, select only the Spotlight Index box. Click Execute. (This process of Rebuilding your Spotlight Index could take hours depending on how big your hard drive is).+
+~ This will give you a clean fast Spotlight database that Mail uses for Entire Message searches.+
+8. Quit Onyx+
+9. Open Mail.app and test your Entire Message Search!+
====
+Hope that helps - it certainly, finally, did for me!+
Bryce."
If I was to do this myself, using Onyx that I've downloaded, and as described above, should I do it from the internal on to the clone? The trouble is I have 1 and a half days left with this computer and I need to use the 'Entire Message' search with mail practically that whole time as I'm totaling a large invoice for a client whilst looking at hundreds emails related to them, this is a nightmare.
Can you recommend me a cloud service that will let me download on to my emergency computer that's an old G4 Powermac with Panther? A tried ADrive and kept on getting the 302 error cod, and tried DriveHQ but it tells me to 'insert the volume related to the file' ............ these seem to work fine when downloading to my intel MBP though ....
Message was edited by: Scottishengineer