Weird issue, cant retrieve FF bookmarks.

[Simpson5774]

Okay, Heres my issue. My main HD decided to stop booting into windows, so what I decided to do was put another HD in my computer, install windows, and just go through the old HD to get all the important items. Well going to retrieve my bookmarks from the "users" folder, had to give a bunch of folders read permissions, but long story short, in the folder that should contain the backups for my bookmarks from the last install seems to contain backups from recently as in files have been modified in the documents and settings folder as if it was being used currently. As far as I can tell, when I access these folders its telling me that I am in this old hard drive and not somehow being shortcutted into the new one.

This is windows 7, so its all kind of new to me, but I have never seen this kind of behavior before, where old documents and settings (users) is literally being mirrored, when I didn't set that up to be like that, and when I installed mozilla on this new windows install, the old HD wasn't even installed. I am afraid that I have lost my old bookamrks due to this BS, so at the very least could someone explain to me what has happened? thanks.

 

[Bahamut]

If possible, just do a search for bookmarks.html - that's your bookmarks file, buried inside the user profile inside the Mozilla folder inside the Roaming directory inside the AppData directory inside the username folder inside Users. *phew* You'll need to make sure if you do a search it must be able to look in system folders and show hidden files, as well - the search options are fairly easy to figure out in Windows 7.

Looks like this (the AppData folder is a hidden system folder, you'll need to alter your Folder Options to "see" it to be able to browse down to it):

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\randomstring.default

but a simple full drive search (if necessary) should turn up the bookmarks.html file. If not, you can then look inside the \bookmarkbackups folder for the *.json file that has the current date or the one closest to the current date and that'll be an "emergency" backup of the bookmarks.html file.

You can import either one into Firefox with Bookmarks - Organize - then Import and Backup - Restore - Choose file and go from there.

The reason that some parts of user profiles are mirrored is because some older applications aren't compatible with the new <root>\Users\username\etc structure that Windows 7 takes (and Vista as well). It's more secure in some respects because you can have files in one physical location while having symbolic links and junction points that point to 'em.

Long story short: it really does work better this way...

 

[Simpson5774]

If possible, just do a search for bookmarks.html - that's your bookmarks file, buried inside the user profile inside the Mozilla folder inside the Roaming directory inside the AppData directory inside the username folder inside Users. *phew* You'll need to make sure if you do a search it must be able to look in system folders and show hidden files, as well - the search options are fairly easy to figure out in Windows 7.

Looks like this (the AppData folder is a hidden system folder, you'll need to alter your Folder Options to "see" it to be able to browse down to it):

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\randomstring.default

but a simple full drive search (if necessary) should turn up the bookmarks.html file. If not, you can then look inside the \bookmarkbackups folder for the *.json file that has the current date or the one closest to the current date and that'll be an "emergency" backup of the bookmarks.html file.

You can import either one into Firefox with Bookmarks - Organize - then Import and Backup - Restore - Choose file and go from there.

The reason that some parts of user profiles are mirrored is because some older applications aren't compatible with the new <root>\Users\username\etc structure that Windows 7 takes (and Vista as well). It's more secure in some respects because you can have files in one physical location while having symbolic links and junction points that point to 'em.

Long story short: it really does work better this way...

Well thank you, I didn't think about searching for it, I mean I knew where it was in the user folder, but I had forgotten I had my own backup, but its from a few months back so I am missing a few, I count find my most up to date bookmarks.

Does windows just naturally see a "users" or documents and settings folder and just mirror / write everything to it? I thought it only writes to where you direct it (default c:\ ) Does the same thing work with registry / windows folder?