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Can I Restore Firefox After Hard Drive Failure?

  • 8 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

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Hi,

My Laptop Hard drive failed but i was able to save all data to an external one and put it back onto the new hard drive.

I will have to install Firefox on the laptop again, But I just want to know could i restore Firefox (Like the Bookmarks, Browsing, download, search and Visited websites History) back on the laptop like it was before the hard drive failed, Is all this data on the saved hard drive (In A Firefox Profile Folder) or would it be lost ?

Thanks

Hi, My Laptop Hard drive failed but i was able to save all data to an external one and put it back onto the new hard drive. I will have to install Firefox on the laptop again, But I just want to know could i restore Firefox (Like the Bookmarks, Browsing, download, search and Visited websites History) back on the laptop like it was before the hard drive failed, Is all this data on the saved hard drive (In A Firefox Profile Folder) or would it be lost ? Thanks

All Replies (8)

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You need to locate the profile.

Then recover that old profile to the new one on your new harddrive/computer.

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When exploring your internal and external hard drives, if you do not find the AppData folder, turn on viewing of hidden files and folders. See: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hidden-files

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so First do i just download Firefox again and then copy the old profile/Folder from the External Hard-drive to the new Laptop hard drive?

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Install Firefox on your new hard drive and when you start Firefox, it will create a new profile folder in the default location. You can open that folder using

Help > Troubleshooting Information > "Show Folder" button

In that window, go up a level to the main Profiles folder, the keep that open and return to Firefox and exit out.

Copy your old profile folder into the Profiles folder side by side with the new one. Firefox won't recognize the existence of the old folder because its name is not familiar, so you'll have to rename it. First, rename the new folder by adding _blank to the name. Then copy the name up to but not including the _blank, and use that as the new name for the folder you copied over. When you start Firefox, it should detect your copied profile folder and run with it. If your copied folder was from Firefox 23, most likely you will see Firefox check extension compatibility and show the welcome screen again.

Does that work?

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It is better not to rename a profile folder to avoid problems with it, but only copy data from that profile to the current Firefox program folder.

If you want to use this profile then use the Profile Manager to register this profile by creating a new profile and click "Choose folder" and browse to that profile to make Firefox recognize and use it.

Modified by cor-el

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Hi

The Transferring data to a new profile- Firefox Link does not work.

I can't figure out how to transfer the old profile to the new Firefox downloaded on the new hard drive,

is there any video that goes through the steps?

Thanks

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Hi gaelicfran, seems the mozillazine server is down at the moment. You can read the article in Google's cache (click the downward-pointing triangle next to the green URL):

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox - Google Search

Modified by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

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