Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Recover bookmarks after formatting PC

  • 3 replies
  • 52 have this problem
  • 8 views
  • Paskiausią atsakymą parašė cor-el

more options

I don't have a foxmarks account and unfortunately I had to format my PC (Windows XP). Now I don't have my bookmarks anymore. Is it possible I can get them back in my PC or somehow recover the bookmarks using any data recovery software? Thank you! : (

I don't have a foxmarks account and unfortunately I had to format my PC (Windows XP). Now I don't have my bookmarks anymore. Is it possible I can get them back in my PC or somehow recover the bookmarks using any data recovery software? Thank you! : (

All Replies (3)

more options

If you formatted the PC it is unlikely that you will be able to retrieve the bookmarks, especially if you have used the drive again since formatting it.

A data recovery tool may be able to help, assuming that you have not added anything to the drive since reformatting it. If you try a data recovery tool, the file to look for is places.sqlite which will be in the profile folder

more options

Thanks TonyE...I tried data recovery but I couldn't find any profile folder...I guess it had been replaced it when I formatted my PC. But I did somehow recover all my bookmarks! : ) I found this "bookmarks-2010-09-02.json" with the data recovery software. Apparently this .json file is all my bookmarks in firefox. Thank you for your help! ^^

more options

It would be better to try to undelete a text file like a JSON backup in the bookmarkbackups folder instead of a large binary file like places.sqlite. Because all the MFT entries and index data is gone, your only option is probably a low level data search for specific content of such a .json backup.

You can open a JSON backup to see what the first bytes of such a file look like:

{"title":"","id":1,"dateAdded"

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Backing_up_and_restoring_bookmarks_-_Firefox

See also http://www.recuva.com/