336265 - Profiles, folders address book are lost after reinstall windows

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[reinhard.laga]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; nl; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060308 Firefox/1.5.0.2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; nl; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060308 Firefox/1.5.0.2

Before reinstalling windows I have made a copy of my hard drive onto an external hard disk. Unfortunately without backup of profiles. after reinstall Thunderbird was still on the external HD, but without profiles, address book, any (sub-)folder.

I had the same problem with bookmarks and saved passwords in firefox btw.

Reproducible: Always

Actual Results:  
I found the (empty) folders back in */applications/**/Thunderbird/profiles/4anmvy79.default (?) but they have an .sbd extention. 
Some .mdf files of messages, *DAT, *.rdf. 

Expected Results:  
retrieve my emails and addres book?

Comment 1

[mikehelbing]

sounds like me.  Reinstalled after Get Mail stopped working.  Lost all files and address book.  Still on hard drive but I can't access them.  Fire Fox still works but Tbird sure isn't.  Would like to be able to use Tbird again.
Mike

PS I new to this and learning.  I'm not conversant in all the terms but I plodding on.

Comment 2

[reinhard.laga]

hi mike,
Here's what found out: you need to download MboxImport, a plugin to import mail folders into thunderbird.
You can download the plugin at http://nic-nac-project.de/~kaosmos/mboximport-en.html
or search with google, there are plenty of other places where you can download it.
the lost folders are in the applications folder:
C:\documents and settings\(your username)\applications\thunderbird\profiles\your profile(replaced by a code, like r4v2k6u7.default)\mail.
Right-click on a mail folder in your thunderbird and click import/export.
Choose import mbox file: 
C:\documents and settings\(your username)\applications\thunderbird\profiles\your profile(replaced by a code, like r4v2k6u7.default)\mail.
Worked for me.
good luck