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After system restore bookmarks have gone no old profiles exist can they be retrieved

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  • 9 have this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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Hi, my laptop did a system restore after crashing without me being able to backup anything ie bookmarks etc everything in the new firefox folder is dated 06/02/2014 so i cannot see or get my old bookmarks back any help appreciated. running vista and latest firefox.

Hi, my laptop did a system restore after crashing without me being able to backup anything ie bookmarks etc everything in the new firefox folder is dated 06/02/2014 so i cannot see or get my old bookmarks back any help appreciated. running vista and latest firefox.

All Replies (9)

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Can you see the old profile in your desktop?

Yes, enter in your profile folder, enter in bookmarks folder there are about 10 backups? Are they .json file? if yes go to Firefox Bookmarks >> Show all bookmarks >> Import and backup >> Restore >> Chose File then select one fo that json files

No, try go to your profile, maybe it still in Mozilla folder:


Also:

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Hi there, there is no old profile just the new 1 created last week after the system restore all the .j.son files are there but are the same date last week there is no files before then.

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It is bad, i will do a search, but i will ask more help for this thread.

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When searching for Firefox data, make sure to unhide all files and folders. This article has the steps: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wi.../show-hidden-files.

How far did your system roll back -- all the way to original factory condition? In that case, it might not be possible to find a clean copy of your Firefox data, but you could try using erased file recovery software such as the following:

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Any file with the word bookmark in its name would be a potentially useful file to investigate.

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Did you check if there are other Firefox profile folders by going back one level?

  • C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

Do you have an "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop?

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Hi what do you mean by going back one level? No there is no other folder just the 1 it says folder was made 2012 but everything in the folder is dated last week 2014 when the problem occurred.

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Hi mazzz666, you asked:

Hi what do you mean by going back one level?

It sounds as though you intuited the answer. "Back" or "up" depending how you look at it... The idea was to look in the Profiles folder for any other profile folders that might also exist in your current live installation of Firefox.

It's odd that the folder is dated 2012 in a fresh install. Or do you mean there's a 2012 folder in the Old Firefox Data folder?

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There is only 1 profile in firefox hycamty.default created 03.07,12 when i click and open it more or less every file says dated feb 2014 i was advised to look in the places.sqlite file but this is the same earliest date is 2 feb 2014.

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Are there also not older JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder?

If you can't find an older file, either a places.sqlite or a JSON backup, then I'm afraid that you bookmarks are lost.

A last resort can be to try an undelete utility like Recuva like posted above, but that can fail as well as cluster may already have been reused to store other data giving you a corrupted file even when restored.