nightmare!

hello,
i thought i would move my thunderbird profile to my documents so i created a new profile in my documents.
but then i relised that that would mean recreating the settings so i deleted the profile in my documents it crashed half way so i ended the process.
i opened my documents and found that my music,my pictures are both empty and my folder of my microsoft office documents are also gone!
where could they of gone during the crash of the thunderbird profile manager?

i have got a version of most of those files on my external drive but it was a frew months ago.
i have a ati backup image partly corropt which i made when my pc had bad memory which i created less than a month ago.
in an atempt to minimize hard drive activity i have disabled diskeeper auto defragging and am currently running opera off my usb pen.
i also done the stupidest thing ever i rebooted after it happerned i hope that doesnt mean i cant get my files back.
so this proves that moving the profile to my documents isnt always safe and its safer to keep it in the default place.
that was juts to try to cheer myself up but it didnt really work
so remember when your doing your system image back up your documents as well!
now i am ready for some help!
lodore

 

OMG its worse that i thought my install files folder has most stuff missing as well i only moved it to my document yesterday from my desktop in an atempt to speed on loading time.
i cant belive ive lost most of the install files
this is so so bad for me
why didnt i just give it a few more seconds to finish!
any sergestions?
i cant belive that in pressing close on one thunderbird profile manager process could of got rid of over 2gb's worth of data in like 2 seconds.
sorry for this rant but i am really annoyed that by pressing the end process button because windows said it had crashed caused me to lose most of my documents and my installer files just because it was trying to delete one folder in my documents called Tim that folder was so small it shouldnt of even locked up trying to get rid of it.
why do i always have to be the person to learn the lesson.
why cant this of happerned to someone else and i help them fix it!

i found this in the faq
Warning: It is possible that a Firefox or Thunderbird profile folder may contain non-Mozilla files if you selected a "custom" profile location when the profile was created (see above). If you later use the "Delete Files" option to remove that profile, the entire folder and it's contents will be deleted, including any non-Mozilla files. This cannot be undone. For this reason, it is recommended that you avoid using the "Delete Files" option when deleting a Firefox or Thunderbird profile . If you want to delete the profile folder also, you can do that manually.
i cant belive that by pressing the delete profile button it deletes everything in the folder.
so if you have your firefox profile on your data partistion then dont ever press the delete button in the profile manager!
please reccomend me a undelete program that i can insstall on my pen drive to restore my stuff!
lodore

 

I know file recovery programs have been discussed here in the past. Some free ones are out there. Whether they will work in your situation or not I do not know. Here is a Google search to start you on your way until more help\suggestions arrive.

 

thanks Thunderz
i cant belive that if you put the profile directly in my docs it deletes the whole folder doesnt it know what folder it bloody created!
im now gonna have to restore the backup since i cant seem to restore the files.
worst bug ever coming from a company i trusted.
why cant they just put it in a subfolder?
this has happerned so many times to other people fix the bug you ba*ta*ds.
i was just folowing the advice on there site to move a profile with nothing in it. lets hope i can browse that image in acronis true image tomorrow.
mozilla will get some emails very soon
lodore

 

Iodore,
Did you change the file "profiles.ini" too in the system partition [C:] ?

Click on
My Computer/System Partition[C:]/Documents and Settings/Erik/Application Data/Mozilla/Firefox

Right Click on the file “profiles.ini” and open it with “Notepad”.
Change line “IsRelative=1” into “IsRelative=0”
Change line "Path=Profiles/xxxxxxx.default” into “Path=D:\My Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxx.default”

The last line needs to refer to a complete path of the folder on your data partition, which can be different with MY path of course.
It's about the same for Thunderbird.
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, to make it work properly.

I've done this already two times without problems.

I created two main folders : My Documents and My Mozilla on the data partition :
Under My Mozilla I created two subfolder "Firefox" and "Thunderbird"
Under Firefox, I moved my profiles folder of Firefox, same for Thunderbird.
BUT it has to work also, when you put these folders under My Documents.

 

basically i found a link from mozilla that tells you if you create the profile in my documents it doesnt create a sunfolder and if tell it to delete the profile folder it will delete all files and subfolders in that folder in my case my documents.
the bug was reported first in 2005 and last time in 2007.
this major bug has been there for 2 years.
so it throws a wildcard and deletes everthing in the folder.
surely it should know what files it put in my documents?
since i only made the profile 2 seconds before and it was a blank profile.
i just hope i can browse the acronis true image and extract the files.
if you have a profile in my documents move it to sub folder or if you ever want to delete it delete it manualy.
right now i just want to get my files back that it deleted.
atm i dont trust mozilla because that is a big bug and they have had 2 years to fix it.
the profile manager looks like anyone can use it since it has a nice interface nd only 3 buttons but on the faq they tell you its only for advanced users.
lodore

 

ok an update.
i connected my external drive mounted the partly corropt image and restored my files.
and ive also burned the data to a dvd just in case
im just glad i had the backup
lodore

 

You are a lucky man. I guess you aren't enthousiastic anymore to move these folders.

 

yes i am lucky all i lost was a excel document with software im gonna install on my new pc im building soon.
i can create that list easy enough anyway.
im not even thinking about moving those folders atm
loore

 

lodore, It looks like you've got it under control, but just for talking sake, could you have done a system restore to a recent earlier date? I did one last week and it worked great.

 

system restore only restores system files and not documents.
i found that out a while ago.
also when i was reading about rollbackrx it kept mentioning that system restore only restored system files and not document.
lodore

 

lodore, I mentioned it because if you recall I did an update on my Diskeeper last week, and DK dislodged a left in Spysweeper folder in Windows causing a message to appear during every boot up. I restored back to a day before the update and it worked. System Restore restores your computer to the state it was in before the problem happened. I'm not disputing what you're saying, just relating my experience.

 

hmm thats a good point i forgot about that.
i still havent updated diskeeper because of your warning
lodore

 

No - not all user data. An exmaple:

not .doc - .txt - .jpg
will monitor .pdf - .exe file extensions.

What file types SR monitors: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/sr/sr/monitored_file_extensions.asp

 

I disabled System Restore, which is again one of these mediocre softwares, that comes with Windows. I replaced it with the brilliant FirstDefense-ISR, which recovers ALL files and saves your computer, even before Windows starts.
What's the advantage of having System Restore, if you can't even get to Windows when you are in trouble, like for instance a BSOD. ?

 

also you save 10percent drive space if you disable system restore.
the new pc im building will use windows 2k pro so i wont even need to disable system restore since it doesnt even have it.
the problem with the current version of rollbackrx is that you cant do bare metal recovery so if your harddrive goes you cant restore it.
the version coming out soon can do bare metal recovery thou cant it?
for my new pc it was eiether rollbackrx or shadow protect desktop im gonna buy shadow protect since i can do e.g. a weekly image then restore it from the external drive if the internal drive goes.
lodore

 

Good choice. ShadowProtect is a necessity. It will save your computer in ALL circumstances. I would wait with FDISR and RBRx, you can always buy it later, but my preference is still FDISR.

 

ZCV, You mention certain files won't restore, like .jpg. I did a system restore to an earlier date, and all my .jpg files are still intact. I have only used it once before so I'm not to schooled in it, but now I'm a little confused as to what you mean.

 

Hello twl845,

What I meant is if lets say one or more .jpg files are deleted, and you did a System Restore back to prior the deletion, those deleted .jpg's wouldn't re appear because SR doesn't back it up. Your .jpg's were intact because SR ignores them.

User files by and large should be backed up using standard backup prcedures - drag and drop or backup software.

If an .exe got deleted, that would re appear. Look at the MS doc. So if you uninstall a program, most of it minus .txt files would be back.

If you installed a program since the last SR point, and restored prior to the install, the program would be gone - same with MS patches.



To Eric Albert - yes it is medicore, but the vast majority of users don't use imaging programs and SR is far better than nothing.

 

ZCV, Thanks for clearing that up for me.

 

You're welcome

Hi lodore,

XP's SR takes by default 12% of the partition space which can be controlled -

Right click My Computer > Properties > SR tab > highlight the partition (the OS partition which IMO is the only partition that should be monitored) and then Settings. Move the slider to a lesser %.

The tradeoff is the restore points cycle off more quickly.

 

I believe that does not hold true...
Since you do a raw backup (sector by sector) of the RBrx partition(s), you can do it... hence the discussion not so long ago about Imaging Software with raw option to use with RBrx, like Paragon Drive Backup.

 

Hi lodore, glad you got your data back.
_________________________________

- System restore doesn't restore data such as documents, history etc, it saves them. SR supposed to 'protect' your personal files by NOT restoring files in the My Documents folder - if you want to protect your data from a restore then store it in this folder.

 

Hello Meriadoc,

Not clear on what you mean by it saves them

Yes, SR does not monitor, meaning back up in Restore points, any file type in My Documents.

And please read the MS Doc on what file extensions are monitored. Documents is too broad - .pdf documents are monitored and would be restored. If a .pdf doc is updated or a new .pdf doc created since the last restore point, both would be gone.

Think of SR as a half ass drive image

So either do one of two things, create a OS only partition and a data partition (including My Documents by moving it the data partition) and have SR monitor the OS only.

Or make sure of making timely backups of User data, then anything that SR replaced with an older version or wiped the new, then you would have a backup to get the updated data back.

As I've written in a previous post, any software installs/MS updates since the last restore point would have to be redone. But this holds true of drive imaging as well or any orther system recovery.

BTW, Vista, Ultimate only AFIK, has built in Drive Imaging, incremental at that. But, in true MS fashion made the compression ratio almost one to one.