AKICIF -- Thunderbird, author needs clue

[kinzel]

Well,

the new computer arrived and is now online, which is good. The old hard drive was not a total failure and it looks like I have found some of the thunderbird files .. but the last back-up was killed as the drive was going wonky so the best copy of those files I have was a week before that, I guess, if I can find that data among the oddities. I can use a clue or two on this, if anyone has one, like the best way to work this... should I install thunderbird and then try to dig out the old files ... I'm a lot of years from fiddling this kind of stuff on a regular basis and i can't even use my old tree progams ... sigh.

Will check back in between cooking and watching the Ravens ...

Comments

Backup

[doccolt.livejournal.com]

I can't help with the current problem, but you might want to ckeck out Carbonite.com. About fifty dollars a year and constant automatic backup to an offsite encrypted file whenever you are online. When you get a new computer just log on and download the files complete to the last time you were online.
Sam

Re: Backup

[grassrose.livejournal.com]

I was looking at that one, plus elephantdrive.com. They have different features. It's a matter of figuring out exactly how you plan to use your backup.

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

Did you get the email I sent you about a week ago? Just double checking

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

U mmm .... haven't got the mail program in gear yet. Drop a note to rolanni?

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

It was from Christmas Eve. I'll copy it to her.

T'Bird restoration

[grassrose.livejournal.com]

The easiest way I've found to handle T'Bird recoveries is to

1. Install T'Bird on your new machine.

With T'Bird CLOSED on your new computer:

2. In your backups, navigate to where all the juicy stuff is kept.
In XP, it's at
C:\Documents and Settings\loginid\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\randomalphanumerics.default\Mail
In Vista, it's at
C:\Users\loginid\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\randomalphanumerics.default

3. Copy the backed up abook.mab file to the new computer. This is your address book. Go ahead and write over the new empty one, if there is one.

4. Copy the entire backed Mail folder and replace the new one.

Ideally, this will recover all the basic settings you want. You may have to play around, if you've done extensive customizing.

It's better to make the transfer with a thumb drive. Burning it to CD changes read-write permissions. I did that once, and ended up just making the whole .default folder and subfolders completely read-write, to get it working. I'm not sure that's the default configuration, but it was easier than doing a file by file comparison with a working directory :o)

Hope this helps!

Re: T'Bird restoration

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Well ...
it is not being easy, I must say, locating the abook.mab in the back-up.

Re: T'Bird restoration

[grassrose.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... are you going from XP to XP, XP to Vista, or Vista to Vista? If you're dealing with Mac or Linux, I don't know the path structure. However, if you find the Mail folder, the abook.mab file should be in the same parent folder. Maybe :o)

One occasional problem is that some folks just back up their "My Documents" folder, and not everything under their login id folder. If that's the case here, your mail wasn't backed up. //edit: never mind - you said you found some of the T'bird files, so obviously you're doing a more thorough backup//

Carbonite Backup

[k1ndleuser.livejournal.com]

I have to agree about Carbonite. It's $50 a year per computer and cheap at the price. Absurdly easy to use.

I can refer you and get a couple of months free on my account (grin)!.

Thunderbirds are... gone?

[pakwa26.livejournal.com]

Wow. Last I heard, Thunderbirds were little plastic guys on strings. See how long it takes that stuff to make it down here!

Re: Thunderbirds are... gone?

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Well, given the distributed nature of the net, it could well be...

International (email) Rescue!

"Wonky Hard Drive

[(Anonymous)]

Steve
I have used a product frmo DriveInternals to scan hard drives for sectors that appear to be files. (I had a drive or two "protected" by Go-back which meant the program had to do a sector by sector scan of the entire hard drive. There is a demo version that will let you see if you think it will work for you.

(FYI - I placed the drive in an external USB enclosure for use while the recovery was going on and that set up worked well.)

Hope this helps - Bill Ryan Glenville NY (kungom@earthlink.net).

[grassrose.livejournal.com]

Did you ever get your address book back? Enquiring geeks want to know :o)