Really need help
Hi, I hope maybe there might be a ray of hope here but I royally screwed up. Like BIG time. I was having issues with my windows laptop & the microsoft guy said to do a factory reset but select the option to keep my files & everything will be fine. Which I did. I did the reset & logged into my Firefox, only to find that NONE of my passwards had saved. It had asked for a 32 Key code but I've had this account for years & years & years and have never once been given a 32 key code. I thought maybe it was an option for future password reset so just clicked on 'next'. Well my bad, that was the dumbest thing I've ever done because all my passwords have been wiped & I've only managed to recover a tiny handful but most of them seem to be gone for good. Is there any hope of recovering? I thought because I had a Firefox account then that would be that, everything would be saved in the that account. Really wish I knew about the code thing, I wouldn't set one up if I knew. I think my biggest lesson from this is don't full trust the Microsoft guy if he makes it sound super easy & fuss free!
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Sorry to hear about this problem. During the Reset/Refresh, did Windows create this folder:
C:\Windows.old
If so, that's usually a temporary folder which gets deleted after 28 days.
Turn on viewing of hidden files and folders --
-- and explore up the path to
C:\Windows.old\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox
Is there data there? If so, we can suggest how to restore this to the new locations.
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jscher2000 - Support Volunteer said
Sorry to hear about this problem. During the Reset/Refresh, did Windows create this folder: C:\Windows.old If so, that's usually a temporary folder which gets deleted after 28 days. Turn on viewing of hidden files and folders -- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/view-hidden-files-and-folders-in-windows-97fbc472-c603-9d90-91d0-1166d1d9f4b5 -- and explore up the path to C:\Windows.old\Users\<username>\AppData/Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox Is there data there? If so, we can suggest how to restore this to the new locations.
Hi, thanks for replying - I noticed there is a folder called C:/Windows.old but when I go to open the files inside of it, they are all empty
Hmm, I'm not sure what you mean by the files being empty. What files did you look at?
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer said
Hmm, I'm not sure what you mean by the files being empty. What files did you look at?
Thank you so much for replying back. Sorry, maybe files was the wrong word, folders maybe better? I saw the folder C:\Windows.old, I clicked on it (I also did what you said about showing the hidden folders etc.), the next folder available after that is 'users' which I clicked on, then the next three folders available after that were 'default', 'kelsi' (my name) & 'public'. I clicked on the folder with my name & it opens with more folders titled 'AppData' (which has numerous folders within it), 'favorites', 'links', 'OneDrive', 'searches' & a standalone file called 'NTUSER.DAT'. Only 'searches' & 'AppData' have more folders & files in them, the rest say they are empty. Sorry for the confusion (I'm not the most tech savvy - I've definitely learnt my lesson the hard way from this!)
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer said
Hmm, I'm not sure what you mean by the files being empty. What files did you look at?
Oh, I missed this part: C:\Windows.old\Users\<username>\AppData/Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox Sorry I didn't see it in my panic - okay I've got that far in my folders now.
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer said
Hmm, I'm not sure what you mean by the files being empty. What files did you look at?
Oh, I missed this part: C:\Windows.old\Users\<username>\AppData/Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox Sorry I didn't see it in my panic - okay I've got that far in my folders now.
So under
C:\Windows.old\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox
there should be a Profiles folder. In the Profiles folder would usually be at least two subfolder with a partially randomized name. The one ending with .default-release typically would be the most used, unless you triggered Firefox to create a new profile. If you check within the profile folders, in their bookmarkbackups folder, can you identify the most recent profile (the creation dates are coded into the file names)?
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer said
So under C:\Windows.old\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox there should be a Profiles folder. In the Profiles folder would usually be at least two subfolder with a partially randomized name. The one ending with .default-release typically would be the most used, unless you triggered Firefox to create a new profile. If you check within the profile folders, in their bookmarkbackups folder, can you identify the most recent profile (the creation dates are coded into the file names)?
Thanks for replying. Yes, I see bookmarkbackups. The most recent one in the title says 2025-04-26 which is the day things got deleted but the modified date is from last year. I guess it would be the one before that?
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer said
So under C:\Windows.old\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox there should be a Profiles folder. In the Profiles folder would usually be at least two subfolder with a partially randomized name. The one ending with .default-release typically would be the most used, unless you triggered Firefox to create a new profile. If you check within the profile folders, in their bookmarkbackups folder, can you identify the most recent profile (the creation dates are coded into the file names)?
Hi, I just wanted to say thank you for helping so far. I was pointed in the direction to this post (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1321847) & followed that (it's your response so you still solved my problem ... just on a different post from a different user's post! :D). But thank you again for you patience & pointing me in the right direction. Have a great day!