Mozilla Thunderbird........What THE........?

[RALFFERS 0]

Ok, I wake up this morning, turn on the comp as usual; I go to check my mail, and to my surprise my account is wiped clean! No e-mail's in my inbox, no contacts in my address book...the account didn't even exist, I have to set it up again I also noticed my internet connection was acting funky, not wanting to connect, even though all the lights were green as normal. Obviously I can't get back the lost info. But any idea why this happened? I hope it's not a hack....

Dialogue/commentary between Divot, Twardo & myself -

"from your first Oshkosh when the three of us were riding to or from one of

[1969912 0]

Have you checked to see if your thunderbird "profiles" folder still there? That's where all your mail and settings are stored.

Search for "profiles". Mine (Win2K) is in c:\documents and settings\myusername\application data\thunderbird

In the profiles folder there should be a folder with a weird name like 67zr8uxj.default. In that folder is one called "mail", and in there you should find "local folders". Inside that folder will be a bunch of .msf files. Inbox.msf is your inbox, etc.

If it's there, just try reinstalling tbird after saving the whole profiles folder to a safe place, like a cdrom.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[jjiimmyyt 0]

Have a look here http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/profile

"This isn't an iron lung, people. You can actually disconnect and not die." -Dave

[RALFFERS 0]

I just tried everything you guys mentioned; it seems that there is no profile on my comp anywhere. This blows

Thanks for your time and input though

Dialogue/commentary between Divot, Twardo & myself -

"from your first Oshkosh when the three of us were riding to or from one of

[1969912 0]

That's really bad. If the emails are important, then stop using that pc and go find a file recovery utility. The reason that you should stop using the pc is so you don't overwrite any of the deleted files. here is a link to look at with a free program. It's just the first one that popped up after searching and I know nothing about it. There should be tons of free utilities available:

http://www.aumha.org/a/recover.php

If you find out what happened, please post. That's pretty scary stuff.

EDIT: It might be best to not shut down the pc because win doesa bunch of file writes on shutdown/startup. Don't let a scheduled defrag start either.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[RALFFERS 0]

Could a cold boot have anything to do with this? (please tell me yes) My word processor was acting up last night (nothing unusual) and so I did a cold boot.

I had ONE VERY CONFIDENTIAL FILE on here and now I'm freaking out

Dialogue/commentary between Divot, Twardo & myself -

"from your first Oshkosh when the three of us were riding to or from one of

[1969912 0]

Confidential file? Probably show up on you tube by next week.

Take a look here. http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=569893 but it probably won't apply if your profile is gone.

Unless you got hit by a virus or something, your profile should be somewhere.

This is the normal location for tbird stuff in win2k and xp:

c:\documents and settings\myusername\application data\thunderbird\profiles\xxxxx.default\mail\[several posibilities]\

Make sure there are no restrictions on what kind of files you can see by going to MyComputer\tools\folder options\view and removing all restrictions.

"profiles.ini" tells tb where all the files are.

search for your whole drive for:

any of the folders in the path above

default

anything with a file extension of .msf (inbox.msf, sent.msf..), .mab

thunderbird

mozilla

profiles

inbox

sent

outbox

etc.....

.....

If you can't find anything then try a file recovery utility.

here may be a problem with file recovery utilities. Some of them can only find files with certain extensions like .exe, .doc, etc. There should be something available for free though. i'll ask someone about it.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[1969912 0]

Quote

Could a cold boot have anything to do with this? (please tell me yes) My word processor was acting up last night (nothing unusual) and so I did a cold boot.

I had ONE VERY CONFIDENTIAL FILE on here and now I'm freaking out

You mean it locked up and you had to just kill the power to it? Shouldn't matter, except for possibly losing whatever you were working on at the time.

It's hard to believe that all tb files are gone unless there is a piece of badware designed to do that specifically. Keep looking, but limit file writes by not copying, saving, etc. Look on all drives that you have.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[1969912 0]

Correction: Your emails are not in "inbox.msf". They are in "inbox" with no file extension. That makes it really important to set your computer so that no files are hidden, otherwise some files will not show up in a search. the link below shows where to go for the settings.

Here are the settings:

"Hide File Extensions for Known File Types" should be Unchecked

"View Hidden Files and Folders" should be ON


http://spywarewarrior.com/viewtopic.php?t=272

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG