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O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF



 
 
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  #31  
Old November 5th 15, 07:58 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
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Posts: 18,275
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF

Mark Twain wrote:
I did a few scan with Agent Ransack
and found a few things but not the
folder I'm looking for but I thought
you might be interested in these:

http://i64.tinypic.com/11vmgl4.jpg

http://i64.tinypic.com/119809x.jpg

http://i64.tinypic.com/2mzihl5.jpg

Robert


So right there, in the first photo, Agent Ransack
found JSONLZ4 files on the J: drive. That means
that the internal copy of bookmarks is still present
in the profile folder. Due to the compression,
it's not fair comparing the 900KB size to your
other exported 7MB file.

It's quite possible you haven't lost a thing,
and only need to do a fresh "Export" in a reinstalled
Firefox, to get back the HTML file.

And in the third picture, you have 7MB bookmarks.html
type files in

J:\Users\Rob\Documents
J:\Users\Rob\Downloads

so it's possible that what happened during the delete,
is the shortcut on your desktop got deleted, and not
the actual data file it points to.

You have those files, as well as a 7MB file on E:
that you've already showed me.

*******

If you needed to (and I don't think you do need to
at this point), you can use Bookmark Manager and
"Import" a bookmarks.html, to bring some bookmarks
back. But that would potentially make a mess.

The thing is, you already have some JSONLZ4 internal
representation bookmarks to evaluate first. As soon
as a working copy of Firefox is available, you can
try that on the profile with the JSONLZ4 if necessary
and do another Export.

You seem to have plenty of materials to evaluate as
it is, and perhaps only a shortcut (link) file got
deleted on you. And not real data.

Paul
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  #32  
Old November 5th 15, 08:00 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
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Posts: 18,275
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF

Mark Twain wrote:
Does the 360 have a feature to select which
drive to scan? Otherwise how will I be able
to run it on the 1TB?

Robert


It should have a control to set the source partition.

As well as a control to set the destination partition.

You can't do data recovery without that level of control.
Scanning the whole machine because the program lacked
an interface, could take weeks.

Paul
  #33  
Old November 6th 15, 01:56 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
JT[_6_]
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Posts: 77
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF

Paul wrote:

JT wrote:
Mark Twain wrote:

I did as you suggested and unplugged the adaptor
and then inserted it but it still doesn't recognize the
HD. I fear it may have crashed.

I do hear it clicking when I first power it up but it doesn't
respond.

http://i67.tinypic.com/282x5i.jpg

Also the safely remove icon is gone so I have to switch User and
go into the Administrators Account the USB Safely Remove is still
there possibly as a leftover from System Restore? In any case,
I used it to safely remove the WD hard drive.

http://i68.tinypic.com/dmth8w.jpg

Should I put the WD drive in the 8500 and see if it boots or do
you have further steps for me? The thing is now I can't even
access FF or any of my bookmarks and have only the bare minimum
in IE because I don't use it.

So this is critical.

Thanks,
Robert


It might be the infamous "click of death"

Try powering off the drive, unplug from usb and wait a minute.

Plug it back in. Does it click? Try it again. Does it click?

If it consistently "clicks" on startup it's probably a dead hard
drive.

JT


He is booted off it right now. The disk not only has
backups on it, it also has a cloned set of OS partitions,
just for situations like this. So the disk has gone
from "wants to be formatted" to fully working, all by
being moved out of the external enclosure it was in,
to being put back inside the PC.

Paul


Paul


Paul


Oops, I've got to stop skimming these subjects and fully read the

threads. Sorry guys.

JT
  #34  
Old November 6th 15, 04:03 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
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Posts: 2,402
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF

So your saying do NOT re-install the
1TB yet?

Does the Action Center offer anything?

http://i63.tinypic.com/dbjmlk.jpg

http://i66.tinypic.com/5yzzt0.jpg

http://i64.tinypic.com/2jz33c.jpg

http://i66.tinypic.com/24crw2a.jpg

http://i63.tinypic.com/v7zb0l.jpg

Robert

  #35  
Old November 6th 15, 05:10 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
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Posts: 18,275
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF

Mark Twain wrote:
So your saying do NOT re-install the
1TB yet?

Does the Action Center offer anything?

http://i63.tinypic.com/dbjmlk.jpg

http://i66.tinypic.com/5yzzt0.jpg

http://i64.tinypic.com/2jz33c.jpg

http://i66.tinypic.com/24crw2a.jpg

http://i63.tinypic.com/v7zb0l.jpg

Robert


If you want or expect to carry out an "undelete"
operation, you should:

1) Avoid writing to the 1TB drive (the one with the
deleted files). Operating it as the booted OS
drive, writes to it (a little bit).
2) Determine whether the files are actually still
present on the 1TB drive. If only a shortcut icon
got deleted, perhaps you haven't lost anything.
With the 1TB drive operating as a data drive,
search it with Agent Ransack, for the missing
content.
3) To carry out an undelete (you've decided some
important files really were deleted), you would:

a) Boot from the 2TB drive. The 1TB drive can be
connected as if it is a data drive. It's OK to
connect the 1TB drive, and you can connect it
using any method you feel like, as long as that
method appears to be stable from a hardware
perspective.

b) Install the undelete program on the 2TB drive.

c) Scan the 1TB drive and the partition on it.
That might be J:, where your copy of Firefox
was located.

d) If the undelete program reveals interesting
files worth recovering, save the files to
a folder on the 2TB drive (in E: somewhere).
You want to keep a separate folder, in case
that tool finds 100,000 fragments. The tool
will read the fragments from the 1TB drive,
and store them on E: on the 2TB drive.

4) Once the attempt at data recovery is complete
(files found or files not found), eventually
all the kid glove handling of the 1TB drive can
cease.

5) If you still really really needed a file from the
1TB drive, you can use applications such as
Photorec or Recuva. I think they are a different
sort of program from the 360 one. They do a sequential
scan of the disk, grabbing everything they can see.
You will definitely have to sort through a pile
of "output rubbish" if you use an approach like that.
But if a file is important, people do that sometimes.
If the deleted files were fragmented, the scan
may only recover pieces of the files. And not whole
files.

I've tested Photorec, by putting a test image on a disk,
deleting it, letting Photorec scan the whole drive, and
it did recover the image without damage. And that was
possible, because the image file was not fragmented, and
I was also careful to not allow any writes to the drive
before attempting recovery.

The 360 program finds the old file pointer and metadata,
and so it is using existing file system information to
find the file. This is a better method, in the sense that
it takes advantage of the nature of deleting and undeleting.
Since the file system flips a bit in the entry to invalidate
it, virtually all the pointer information can be recovered.
But if you insist on writing gigabytes of new files to the
1TB disk, eventually it obliterates the file pointer and metadata,
and can also overwrite the clusters (which are now known to be
free for reuse).

So if you want to do data recovery now, boot from the 2TB,
connect the 1TB as a data drive, and use whatever tools you
want to try out.

If you're satisfied with the outcome to date, and no longer
want or need to recover files, you can boot from the 1TB drive,
visit mozilla.org and reinstall Firefox. Your bookmarks (stored
in the profile), should be preserved. Firefox has no reason to
delete the profile. USing the newly installed Firefox, you
can go to Bookmark Manager, and attempt to "Export" the
bookmarks. Then, check the size of the saved Bookmarks.html,
to the existing one (to see if it is 7MB or slightly bigger).

*******

In the past, you've had several backup tools on the machine.
The Seagate drive (used on the 8200?) may have auto-installed
some software. Windows 7 has the System Image function.
You have Macrium installed.

You should settle on a backup solution and make sure
(somehow) that the backups are valid. Some day, you're
going to need to restore one of them, as your only
copy of a bookmarks file might be in there. So make sure that
something works.

I use a blank drive here, and test that the backup tool I'm using,
can restore properly to it. I have several Macrium boot CDs here,
made at different times. So I hope to be (partially) ready
for a disaster. You can never be ready for everything - if
my house burned down, I don't keep a backup drive in my
safety deposit box. At that point, I probably wouldn't
care any more.

Paul
  #36  
Old November 6th 15, 09:47 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
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Posts: 2,402
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF

I thought I had prepared for all of this but
I guess not.

I installed 360 which also triggered Unchecky
to flag it.

http://i64.tinypic.com/351eq06.jpg

However it installed and I ran it and it gave
me this:

http://i68.tinypic.com/10nf9t0.jpg

http://i65.tinypic.com/29qfebo.jpg

http://i65.tinypic.com/ibe7gz.jpg

There was quite a few more pages of the same.
I went back and I couldn't find any link for
any undelete program. Sorry.

Robert

  #37  
Old November 6th 15, 10:18 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF

Mark Twain wrote:
I thought I had prepared for all of this but
I guess not.

I installed 360 which also triggered Unchecky
to flag it.

http://i64.tinypic.com/351eq06.jpg

However it installed and I ran it and it gave
me this:

http://i68.tinypic.com/10nf9t0.jpg

http://i65.tinypic.com/29qfebo.jpg

http://i65.tinypic.com/ibe7gz.jpg

There was quite a few more pages of the same.
I went back and I couldn't find any link for
any undelete program. Sorry.

Robert


Well, I don't see a "bookmarks" in the list.

On the third page, I see evidence of some sort
of Windows Update activity. As "kerberos.dll" got
deleted, and "kernel32.dll" got deleted. Presumably that
was Windows Update and not malware.

If all evidence of a file has been overwritten, it
won't show up in the list at all. If the file pointer
is still in the $MFT, then the program should list
it.

What you were hoping to find, is a filename of
something you deleted, that you'd like back,
and the file status is "very good", meaning
all clusters are not being used by any other file.
If the status is "overwritten", it means the $MFT
has recorded usage of the same cluster numbers
as the old file used to live in, so the old
clusters got overwritten.

*******

As for the malware status of undelete-360, I ran it
through Virustotal. I even unpacked it in Wine, and
submitted the unpacked 8MB file to Virustotal, and
I got nothing. But of course the persons writing
this stuff, they can use Virustotal too, so it's not
like I have the edge on them. I didn't install
the program myself, just unpacked it for obvious
signs of trouble (like a folder indicating
OpenCandy is present). I don't have any sophisticated
tools for catching everything.

Paul
  #38  
Old November 6th 15, 12:43 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,402
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF


I used Agent Ransack for further searches and
located and moved several of the folders/files
from the 1TB to the 2TB.

I then thought instead of trying to remember all
the files I could just move My Documents which
is where I keep everything except the bookmarks
of course but it said it need another 23GB.

I then though maybe I could delete the My
Documents on the 2TB and replace it with
the My Documents from the 1TB but I hesitated
in doing so before asking your advice. However
when I tried copying separate files it again didn't
have enough space.

This surprises me because its a 2TB HD and I would
have thought had more than enough room. I thought
I had allocated almost 1TB for data.

Robert
  #39  
Old November 6th 15, 12:50 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
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Posts: 2,402
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF

As I said, there were many many pages,..
I could run 360 again and see if there's
any information at the bottom of the page.

To be honest, I'm not sure what it is
you would like me to do? Is there some
other program you want me to run?

I just want my bookmarks back aside from
the data in My Documents. I did recover
some and its now on the 2TB.

Thanks,
Robert
  #40  
Old November 6th 15, 09:37 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF

Mark Twain wrote:
As I said, there were many many pages,..
I could run 360 again and see if there's
any information at the bottom of the page.

To be honest, I'm not sure what it is
you would like me to do? Is there some
other program you want me to run?

I just want my bookmarks back aside from
the data in My Documents. I did recover
some and its now on the 2TB.

Thanks,
Robert


I wasn't sure if you had lost more than the
bookmarks or not. The undelete tool was so you
could page through the listing for anything
you might have missed.

Moving My Documents from J: (1TB) to C: (2TB),
the C: partition was made small on purpose. That
was done to make E: as big as possible for .mrimg
files from Macrium. When you make your regular
backups.

You can copy My Documents from J: (1TB) to E:
if you want, but it wouldn't be the same thing.
It would just be a backup folder then.

*******

If you have recovered as many files as possible,
then next you have the re-install of Firefox to
work on.

Since you have recovered all important deleted files,
you can now reboot the 1TB drive. (And remove the
2TB and move it back to the enclosure.)

Installing Firefox should restore XPCOM.

Once Firefox is installed (on the 1TB), check the
Bookmarks menu to see that the bookmarks are there.
The same profile as before should be the default.
You can use the Bookmarks Manager to "Export"
another bookmarks_Nov6_2015.html for you.

You will also need to check that the 2TB drive
now works in the enclosure, and no longer presents
the "format this disk?" dialog.

Paul
  #41  
Old November 7th 15, 12:02 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
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Posts: 2,402
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF

The reason I want to copy 'My Documents' is because the J (1TB)
version is up to date and the C(2TB) version is out of date.

I was successful some moving folders/files but I thought it would
be much better to just copy the entire 'My Documents' versus trying
to remember all the files.

So would it be alright to delete 'My Documents' on the C(2TB)
so I can replace it with the 'My Documents' from J(1TB)? If so
then I can proceed with switching the HD's and reinstalling FF

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

and hopefully everything will return as before and I will check
the 2TB in the enclosure.

Robert



  #42  
Old November 7th 15, 12:55 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF

Mark Twain wrote:
The reason I want to copy 'My Documents' is because the J (1TB)
version is up to date and the C(2TB) version is out of date.

I was successful some moving folders/files but I thought it would
be much better to just copy the entire 'My Documents' versus trying
to remember all the files.

So would it be alright to delete 'My Documents' on the C(2TB)
so I can replace it with the 'My Documents' from J(1TB)? If so
then I can proceed with switching the HD's and reinstalling FF

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

and hopefully everything will return as before and I will check
the 2TB in the enclosure.

Robert


"My Documents" is a reparse point.

That's why I have been waffling.

I wouldn't dare copy My Documents that way. The reparse
point at the destination might be "quite unhappy" if you
attempt to overwrite it. I don't plan on testing that here, just to
see what a mess it makes :-) It would be about as much fun,
as trying to delete C:\WINDOWS or something.

I would experiment by copying "My Documents" to E: instead.

It should be safe to replace *individual* items inside
My Documents, but replacing the whole My Documents
via copy and paste... that doesn't sound good. You should
be one level below that, before copy and pasting. That's
my guess.

Paul

  #43  
Old November 7th 15, 04:05 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,402
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF

Well I knew of no other way of copying the entire
'My Documents' over and it would be too tedious
and time consuming to try and remember all the files
because I do allot of documentation, the same holds
true for the booksmarks.

I did move 'My Documents' to E: using copy/paste.
and verified that the folders/files are there and I opened
a few to test them.

So I will now switch the HD's and re-install FF and let
you know how things stand in my next post.

Thanks,
Robert


  #44  
Old November 7th 15, 04:43 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,402
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF


I was just about to switch the drives when I
decided to check a few more files in the 'My
Documents on the E2TB) and they do not
have the recent changes I made. I noticed this
in more than one file and when I checked the
C1TB) it shows the same thing.

So it seems I've lost some data somehow unless
you know of a way to recover it. I wasn't even
around these files when all this happened I was
on the bookmark menu.

At present, a copy of 'My Documents' is on the
E2TB) but have not switched the hard drives
because of the issue of the files in question.

Robert


  #45  
Old November 7th 15, 04:57 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,402
Default O.T. deleted bookmark, can't sign-on to FF

I just had a FF 42.0 update pop-up but
I didn't click it because I didn't know
if it would affect what were trying to do.

Robert
 




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