I suggest you let thunderbird do the editing. - start thunderbird - click help>moretroubleshootinginformation - scroll down to 'profiles', click 'about:profiles' - click 'create profile' - click next and then first, enter name for profile, e.g., profile. then, click the browse button to locate your profile on drive E and accept it.

Thanks for your reply. How do I get to TB help without an account? The screen that appears now when I start TB requires the user to enter a bunch of information, apparently to ceate a new account, before it will let me see any other options. I tried entering data for one of my existing Email accounts, but I have not yet found a format for that data that will let me get beyond that menu. Amazingly, I have not found any useful help infomation on that menu, and the FAQ page for installing TB for Win (on the TB web site) doesn't even mention this menu! It seemed like it would be easier to find out how to do this manually.

After starting THunderbird, click the ALT key. That brings up the menu. TO keep the menu click view>toolbars>menubar. From there, you can proceed.

David, The ALT key! I should have thought of that. That leads to many other possible actions . Unfortunately after following your procedure to use help>moretroubleshootinginformation, I am still stuck at the menu: "Set Up Your Existing Email Address"

I don't know if this menu is what is preventing me from accessing my Email folders. When I enter an existing E-mail address these are the messages it displays:

(check mark) Configuration found in Mozilla ISP database (exclamation mark) Authentication failed. Please check the username and password

The only thing that seems to make any difference in these messages is the domain name of my "Email address".

When I click on Tools>Settings I see my settings and passwords for Thunderbird. My Address Books seem to display correctly.

If there are no other options, I should be able to restore my Thunderbird profile from backup without any loss of data, although I have been careful to avoid unintended changes with my experiments when editing the profile.ini file. Or I could try to uninstall Thunderbird and then use the custom install to reinstall it.

Many thanks! Lloyd

Hello? ...David? ...Is anyone out there? ...I hope you will forgive me for being impatient.

Since I didn't have any other ideas for something to do to try and fix this problem, I restored my Thunderbird profile back to its original location on my C: drive. Instead of showing my regular mail folders, I got the same old "Set Up Your Existing Email Address" screen. This time it accepted my E-mail address, asked for a couple of passwords, and then immediately downloaded the 600 messages that have been collecting in my POP Inbox from the two weeks when I have been unable to use Thunderbird. These messages were placed in a new Inbox folder, and none of my previous mail folders are visible. I had an elaborate system of filters with those folders that allowed me to manage the volume of the E-mail that I receive.

My C: drive is a new disk with data that was from a backup a couple of months ago. It works exactly I would expect, with the exception of these Thunderbird problems. My Thunderbird user data was recovered with no apparent errors from the hard drive that failed a couple of weeks ago. Browsing those files with File Explorer, everything looks fine, but I won't know for sure if any data was lost until I can open them in Thunderbird. Could there be an error in the user data that would cause Thunderbird to ignore ALL of the folders and data it contains? I suppose that it is also conceivable that I could have made some unintended change to the Thunderbird program itself in my many attempts to get the Profiles.ini file to work properly.

I hope someone can help. I am starting to feel a little desperate. If I cannot get any help from the volunteers, I will have to start asking where I can find paid support from someone who is willing to answer questions.

You apparently didn't follow the steps I suggested earlier. By following the steps to create a new email address, you created a new profile. My suggested steps let Thunderbird manage the profiles.ini, which was the safer route. Having profiles on other than C drive is a common occurrence. If you follow the steps and are still prompted for an email address, I would look to see if the addressbook is there. That would indicate the old profile is active, but that the accounts are corrupt. If your current profile is working, you could copy addressbook, if needed, from old profile. Once your profile stable, and if you want it on drive D, you have two choices: 1. Move just the accounts (which are the primary user of disk space) to drive d OR 2. Move the entire profile to drive D. Both accomplish to goal of reducing disk usage on C.

Let me know which approach you want, if any, and I'll respond.