somewhere deep down in \Documents and Settings\..\local setting\ .. \Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\ there's a direcctory called profiles, replace with copy from old machine
Insert coin in drive slot for the next 10 minutes. Beep.
Look for damage in the power supply area. You can usually see inside through the fan opening. If you see something like this, it's time for a new power supply:
Yet another contribution to eWaste. First, the 19" LCD TV. Now the computah. What's next? As before, may I suggest you at least attempt a repair. Replacing the power supply is quite easy.
Presumably, the data on your hard disk is still intact. Remove the drive, attach a USB adapter, plug into another machine, and...
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
You can move the old hard drive to the new machine, mount it and then copy the user files over. There should be a file with a randomized name which has all your user stuff. On Linux, it is xxx/.mozilla/firefox/.default and then there are directories and files like cookies, extensions, bookmarks, pluginreg, signons, etc.
My approach is to get 10 of the same computer from eBay and mix and match parts. I have a shiny new 8-core server for compute-intensive stuff, but I standardized on a Thinkpad that I liked, and just get more of them for $100 or so. Tear the HDD out of a dying one, cram it in a newer one, and off you go. (Making a mirror backup of the HD is a good move, of course.)
ThinkPads can take an additional disk drive in their UntraBay (rather than an optical drive). I don't know if you can mirror the main drive to it, but it might not be a bad idea if you're not constantly on the road (need a portable CD drive).
Unfortunately one huge problem with Windows is that as soon as it tries to load the old motherboard's chipset driver, e.g. the proprietary driver for the disk controller, it will very likely bluescreen. I've never been sure whether that's the driver author's fault or Windows' own, but it sucks either way.
Have never heard of a surefire workaround for this, perhaps someone else has? Phil's suggestion of keeping a spare motherboard around would work, but not for upgrades.
In any case this sounds like a power supply problem as Jeff L. says. Open up the supply and look for bulging caps. Maybe hook up a 4- channel DSO to the lines coming from the supply and see which one(s) act up.
I use command-line version control software (Linus Torvalds' "git") for just about everything, so backups are pretty simple--I just ssh to my office server and sync everything that way. Other stuff, like my datasheet archive, gets backed up with rsync the same way. Sort of like having my own private cloud. ;)
The server then puts it on a couple of NAS units in my basement at home, plus encrypted cloud backups. So even if a fair amount of excrement were to hit the rotating airfoil, I shouldn't lose a lot of my work.
Ok - having been through this to upgrade the drive in my machine here's what you do:
The Ctrl-Shift-B brings up the Library of Bookmarks and you just click the import/export. Just out of curiosity - if you can't plug in usb you could at least share the folder you put the export into and connect via another machine.
Then passwords - they're a little stickier. There's an add-on called Password Exporter 1.2.1 - install it.
Then go into Tools/Options/Security - under Passwords you'll see an Export Passwords button. Click and save.
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