This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

How do I find the bookmarks file when I can not load the application? I.e., I can not get to the library.

  • 1 reply
  • 3 have this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by rjohnson19

MJHughes
MJHughes
more options

My laptop died. The hard drive is in a case and accessible. It is connected to a 10 year old Pentium. How can I retrieve the bookmarks file from the Laptops drive when I can not load Firefox from that drive? I.e., I can not get to the library on the Laptop drive. I do have full access to it.

My laptop died. The hard drive is in a case and accessible. It is connected to a 10 year old Pentium. How can I retrieve the bookmarks file from the Laptops drive when I can not load Firefox from that drive? I.e., I can not get to the library on the Laptop drive. I do have full access to it.

All Replies (1)

rjohnson19
rjohnson19
more options

You can locate main bookmarks file, places.sqlite, for restoration in another Firefox install, in your profile directory.

Since you profile is on another hard drive, the normal shortcuts to find it won't work.

On Windows XP, you can find the profile here: C:\Documents and Settings\Windows login/user name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default

Where:

  • C:\ is replaced by the drive letter you mounted the laptop drive on.
  • Windows login/username is replaced with your windows user name you used on that hard drive.
  • xxxxxxxx.default is replaced with 8 random characters followed by .default, and should be the only folder in Profiles.

Once you've found the old profile, you can copy files over to a new profile. See https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles#How_to_find_your_profile and Recovering important data from an old profile for other files you may want to restore.

Modified by rjohnson19