Resolved Porting FF & TB to new HD

Last week I had a disaster, which killed both my CPU and HD Boot Sector. Booting my old HD gives me BSOD.

So I have a newer PC where I put my old HD in as a slave. All my files are intact, but nothing runs right because all the drive allocations have been moved up, and of course the registry on my old HD is now useless.

The newer PC HD has FF installed but it is not configured right and none of my bookmarks are there.

The newer PC HD does NOT have TB on it, so I have to do my Email on the web (Rogers Yahoo) which is a pain in the butt.

I know I will have to install TB, and FF needs an update (using 3.6.18).

So, how do I transfer my old FF and TB user files to the new HD and have FF and TB run with my old configuration?

 

Check with Firefox (dot) com. There is a sequence you can run, assuming you can read the data off your old drive, that will allow you to copy and move all your FF data. I just did it to copy all from one machine to another. I have no idea about Thinderbird tho.

 

In case you are not aware, both Firefox and Thunderbird are installed in two parts. One is the program, so obvious to everyone, and the other the Profile, which is in Documents and Settings in WinXP. Newer or not, if Win XP is used the pattern will be the same.

 

I went there and did not find it. But I posted the question, and so far, no reply.

As for Westside, I can see whats in my Doc&Set but I am confused as to what is what. I have several profiles with my name (but slightly different in each).

 

If the old HD did not lose anything, your profiles will be in this folder: C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles (C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles for Thunderbird). I have three profiles, and you should be able to use one at a time. All profiles have a bunch of numbers and letters.aname. In order to see what you have, assuming that your Firefox(or Thunderbird) have a shortcut (if not go to the folder, make one from the firefox.exe (or thunderbird.exe)file. Right click on the shortcut|Properties| type in the Target line -p, with the keyboard space in front of the -. Do Apply and OK. Now, when you click on the modified shortcut it will list the profiles, but only the aname part. You can select one of them, or you can exit, and modify further the Target line, by entering the name that you want, like default (again do a key board space in front of the name).
your Target line should look like this: "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -p default
The only thing to notice is that you will have a different letter for the slave drive, I think.

 

Thanks Westside.
Does this just tell FF & TB to use the profiles on my slave?

Because I need to actually MOVE them from the slave to the master, then later I will need to physically remove the slave once my old drive has been transferred for the other apps.

Cannot I just copy over the entire FF & TB Doc&Set profiles?

Later on I will put in a big SATA drive as the boot master and will have to do the transfers all over again.

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I just tried this. It only lists the existing profile on C: I need the profile(s) on my D: drive which is the old HD's C: drive. All the old drive ID's have been moved up when it became the slave.

Then the only other thing I can do is create a new profile in a new folder. It does not seem to be able to see the D: drive to clone the old profile. I tried editing the cmd line as -p D: but D: was not recognized.

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Me again. I found the correct old profile, as all the other (3) profiles have modified dates going back to 2007 and before. The one I am sure is mine has a date of 21Jul2011, the day before disaster.
BUT "access denied ". Am I skewered??

 

I don't have the slave drive, but I tried to simulate your situation, and everything worked, even better than I thought. I did the following: I had my shortcut set with the -p. Under these conditions, when I clicked on the shortcut, I got a list of the existing Profiles on the right, but I clicked on the Create Profile button, you get Default User, but I changed to another name. You create a new Profile called xxx1111.newname, or whatever. This folder is totally empty. In my case, I copied the Contents of a rarely used profile. and paste it the contents in the empty newly created profile (you copy the contents of the slave drive profile). All this is done with the program closed. I, then add the name of the new profile to the -p. Remember to have a keyboard space after the p. Now click on that shortcut, and Firefox should open, with no problem.
In my case, I created a new profile, and entered all the contents of a profile, formerly, used for Firefox 3.6.18, and I had Firefox 6. No problem with compatibility nor loss of data. It should work for you, if you did not lose any file.

 

Sounds about right, but I cannot access my slave HD profile. I get "Access Denied" just clicking on the profiles dir. I will try a copy in Windows Safe Mode tomorrow.

 

See if this helps .
I guess that you are getting an error when you try this?

 

Why is this so @#$%^&* difficult????

I get Access Denied" even in safe mode.

Those PC-Cleaner apps scan the system, but won't change anything until I pay up. AND even though they link themselves to this "Access Denied" there is no dialog that I can find to fix it.

This is getting bloody frustrating.

 

I went to firefox(.) com>support>firefox and searched for 'copy bookmarks'. Followed one of the appropriate directions, and copied it all - bookmarks, tabs, history... to a folder of my choice. I then overwrote the new Firefox folder with the old stuff........ I did it from the machine I wanted to copy to. Worked for me.

 

Tony, thanks, but now my problem is the old profile (the one I need) is "Access Denied" for the whole subdir it is in. Nothing Microsoft suggested has worked, and the 3rd party apps just want $$$ without saying that they will in fact get around this. I've tried all sorts of stuff, even re-installing XP on the old drive, but that subdir remains "Access Denied" even in safe mode.

I have 1 other idea to try, otherwise I think I'm skewered.
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I tried to do a backup using TODO of the doc&set directory. All but the Bookmark related files copied OK.
So unless someone has a working method of getting past this "access denied" firewall, I AM skewered.

 

SUCCESS!!!!!

Don't ask how, but I stumbled onto the permissions dialog and was trying everything, when suddenly it started to unlock the whole Doc&Set folder. 10 minutes later no more Access Denied.

So as Tony directed I moved the profile over, and FF did not see it. Then on a hunch I renamed the profile.default to the original name and..... IT WORKS. All my bookmarks are back, theams, etc. Just have to d/l the plug-ins.

Tomorrow or Sunday I install TB and move its profile over, same way.

Thanks for all the help, but Microsoft was near useless in this, their Mr.Fixit doesn't.
None of their "help" and FAQ's pointed to the permissions dialog. I just stumbled on it by Rt.Clicking on the FF Icon.

Case closed. If I have any other issues, I will start a new topic.

Thanks again to all.