how do I restore old email files on new thunderbird install

I recently installed a fresh install from a windows 7 upgrade copy. I was unable to activate windows because I no longer have my full version of vista. I used it this way for about 6 months and finally got tired of the activation requests so I called MS support and they set me up with a new activation to work around the lack of vista. I know my thunderbird email was working properly before activation of windows and upon restart all of my email accounts were wiped from thunderbird. everything was still in the profiles folder in appdata but it wont load. I have had success with mailbrowser backup in the past and tried to load an old backup and that wont work either. I copied the TB profiles folder to desktop and uninstalled TB and installed a fresh copy, moved the profile back and tried to link via ini but that doesn't work.. Is there a way to load old data?