Recovering from XP crash, need to get XP Firefox bookmarks into Win7

DumboDog · 27 Jan 2012

My XP system died a couple of weeks ago, and I've spent the time since building a new system and installing Windows 7. I'm using Win7 Pro x64. A lot of things are new, of course, of course.

I'm going nuts. Especially with permission problems. Before I can get back to work, I need to get a number of my old files (on a second drive) back. My old C drive is now E. SOMEWHERE on that E drive is my old Firefox bookmarks. I've had no luck finding the .sqlite file, although there is a backup html file that I found called bookmarks.htm in applications/mozilla/firefox.

Having found it and getting it back are two different things. I gave myself access to the folder that contains the file, no prob. However, opening it either with notepad or with a browser, or even trying to copy it to the desktop fails with a permission error.

Going to the file properties->Security, I see that under "GROUP OR USER NAMES" two items: SYSTEM and some weird long thing S-1-.... with lots of numbers and dashes. At first I thought maybe it was a data error, but the fact that it's ALL numbers and dashes makes me think it's some natural XP phenomenon. Both of those users have all permissions except "Special." Dumbo (yours truly) is not listed.

Clicking on Advanced. Permissions shows the two previously mentioned users. No Dumbo. Clicking on Owner. It shows Dumbo(Dumbo-PC/Dumbo). Yay. However, none of that does me any good because I get access failures when I try to open or copy the file.

Both of the funny users have full permissions, so it's not a read-only problem.

Please tell me how to straighten this out -- I've got a lot more files than this one to try to wean back over to my new drive before I dump the old one. Also, if anybody knows an easier or better way to get my old Firefox bookmarks back, please let me know, because I'm dead without them.

lehnerus2000 · 27 Jan 2012

That number (S-1-....) is how W7 sees the old XP account.
Your old account doesn't exist on W7, so it can't replace the number with a name.

You need to add yourself to the permissions list for that folder.
You can be owner of an object and also not allow yourself to have any access permissions.

How to add a "Dumbo" user to the Security permissions on that folder (see bottom of post for a tutorial link).

Open "Properties" > "Security" on the folder.
Click on "Edit"

Recovering from XP crash, need to get XP Firefox bookmarks into Win7-perm-01a.png

Click on "Add"

Recovering from XP crash, need to get XP Firefox bookmarks into Win7-perm-02a.png

Type your user name into the text box.
Click on "Check Names".

Recovering from XP crash, need to get XP Firefox bookmarks into Win7-perm-05a.png

Click "OK".

Make sure you have at least these permissions:

"Read & Execute".
"List folder contents".
"Read".

You may need to go into the "Advanced" section (see pic 1) and apply the permissions for your user name, to the "Child Objects".
Post a request if you need instructions on how to do this (hopefully you won't have to do it).

Have a look at this tutorial:
Permissions - Allow or Deny Users and Groups

DumboDog · 27 Jan 2012

that did the trick! Thanks a million. :)

boohbah · 27 Jan 2012

just a further tip regarding bookmarks ...

if you install xmarks it will sync your bookmarks for you on their server, you can access your bookmarks from any computer wherever you may be .
it will sync across different browsers and it loads your bookmarks upon opening a browser.
you need never worry about losing your bookmarks again

Xmarks | Bookmark Sync and Search

lehnerus2000 · 27 Jan 2012

You can also move your Firefox profiles to another partition or drive.
The "profiles.ini" file must be edited to point at the new location.

You can find "profiles.ini" here:

C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox

I have my profiles in my Documents partition.
I back up that partition every month.

FliGi7 · 27 Jan 2012

I use the FEBE add-on for Firefox for this sort of stuff. Super easy and useful.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/febe/

Recovering from XP crash, need to get XP Firefox bookmarks into Win7

Recovering from XP crash, need to get XP Firefox bookmarks into Win7

Add your user to the Permissions

Another Option