Firefox won't work since moving to secondary hard drive
My HP Omen has 2 hard drives. Originally, Firefox was installed on the C: drive and working perfectly. In order to clear up space, I tried to use the Windows Move feature to move the program from the C: drive to the secondary (and larger) E: drive. Since then, Firefox won't work aside from opening a Firefox window. It will load no pages, settings, etc.
I've tried uninstalling Firefox from both the C: and E: drives. Searched for any remaining files and deleted them. Deleted Old Firefox Data folders. I've reinstalled Firefox, without the option of where to install it, but it still fails to work at all. I get an error message regarding a missing file, VCRUNTIME140_1.dll. I've searched for the file and it's NOT missing. It is in both the Firefox folder and the Windows/Systems32 folder.
I've searched for data in the Users folders that might relate to Firefox but NOTHING seems to work that will allow Firefox to work again. I've tried putting Firefox in Troubleshooting Mode but it won't restart as it says it needs to. It just won't work!
If anyone can just tell me how to COMPLETELY remove Firefox from both hard drives so that I can just do a clean, new Firefox install, that would be preferable. I know how to import bookmarks from Chrome.
If anyone can offer some help for someone who isn't great with computers, I would greatly appreciate it. If you need any other information, please don't hesitate to ask.
Modified by shadley02
Chosen solution
If you do a custom install on your secondary drive, Firefox should create the needed folders under
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox
and be able to run (without your old data, most likely). This article will get to you to the full installer:
Custom installation of Firefox on Windows
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (7)
Firefox normally uses your Windows User folder for your data files AND for index files that tell Firefox whether your profile folders are on a different drive. I'm not sure what Windows did when it moved the folders, but most likely it moved the index files and then Firefox would complain that it can't find your profile.
But first, to fix the VC Runtime error:
You can (re)run Microsoft's installer for the VC Runtime files:
(B) In the "Visual Studio 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2022" section of the article, download the installer for your system:
- 64-bit Windows: the "X64" download
- 32-bit Windows: the "X86" download
(C) Run that installer and restart Windows.
And then we can resume working on the file location issues.
jscher2000 - THANK YOU for your help! I've gone through the process you requested and am ready to take the next steps. I should mention that Firefox currently is not installed on my computer (anywhere that I know of).
Thanks again, shadley02
Chosen Solution
If you do a custom install on your secondary drive, Firefox should create the needed folders under
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox
and be able to run (without your old data, most likely). This article will get to you to the full installer:
SUCCESS!!! I cannot thank you enough! I've been struggling with this for over a month deleting, reinstalling, working in the registry, and everywhere else I could think to delete relevant data! Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hated having to use Chrome. It doesn't have the ability to be personalized like Firefox does. My best to you! shadley02
Sounds good. If you want to experiment with also having your data files to the secondary drive, you can try it this way:
New Profile Test
This takes about 3 minutes.
Inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.
Take a quick glance at the page and make a mental note of which Profile has this notation: This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted. That is your current default profile.
Click the "Create a New Profile" button, then click Next. Assign a name like June2022, then click Choose Folder. It's important to create a dedicated folder for your profile and not share files with any other program because Firefox may clean them out at some point. After creating and selecting the folder, click the Finish button.
To confirm the physical location of the profile, check the the Root Directory and Local Directory paths for June2022. In the correct place?
To check how it runs, scroll down to June2022 and click its Launch profile in new browser button.
Firefox should open a new window that looks like a brand new, uncustomized installation. (Your existing Firefox window(s) should not be affected.)
During this process, Firefox will switch your default profile to the new one, so click the Set as Default Profile button for your regular one to keep using it at your next startup.
You can use the about:profiles page as needed to switch to your other profile or manage your default. However, don't move the index files (installs.ini and profiles.ini) themselves or Firefox won't know where your data is.
jscher2000,
A new question has occurred to me in regards to this reinstall of Firefox. At the moment it keeps asking me to upgrade to the current version of FF. When I go through the motions, it freezes up. Since we went through a customized install on the E: drive, should I do a customized install/update for all future versions of Firefox?
Your help is greatly appreciated, Best Regards, shadley02
Firefox knows where it is installed, so I don't know why it is freezing up. But since I don't have personal experience with installing to a different drive, hopefully someone else can advise on troubleshooting that.