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How do I recover bookmarks from a broken computer?

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  • Last reply by CoryMH

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I had one of the newer versions of Firefox running on a windows 8 Laptop. I fried the Motherboard and have been getting a blue screen for the last week. I was able to hook up the hard drive from that laptop on my desktop (Windows Vista) with a SATA - USB converter kit and run it like any other external mass storage device. So now I have access to all of that computers files, including the Program and Program x86 files. I did not have firefox sync installed, though I will be sure to do it in the future. Is there any way to pull a file off my old hard drive to restore my bookmarks? If not, are there any other options?

I had one of the newer versions of Firefox running on a windows 8 Laptop. I fried the Motherboard and have been getting a blue screen for the last week. I was able to hook up the hard drive from that laptop on my desktop (Windows Vista) with a SATA - USB converter kit and run it like any other external mass storage device. So now I have access to all of that computers files, including the Program and Program x86 files. I did not have firefox sync installed, though I will be sure to do it in the future. Is there any way to pull a file off my old hard drive to restore my bookmarks? If not, are there any other options?

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Hello,

You will need to go to the folder: <Drive Letter>\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<your Firefox profile>

And copy over the places.sqlite file to transfer bookmarks over to your new profile. For more information, please see the article Recover important data from an old profile.

EDIT: To quickly access your current Firefox profile (assuming you have your OS reinstalled):

  • Go to the about:support page by either entering it in your address bar, or going to:
    • Help (or New Fx Menu > Help-29) > Troubleshooting Information
  • Click "Show Folder"
  • That should open up Windows Explorer in your Firefox profile folder
  • Exit Firefox

You need to have Firefox closed before you replace the places.sqlite file.

Modified by CoryMH