Laptop corrupted.Lost all data.Can this be avoided?
Hi Familiar story - laptop utterly dies and we have not backed up any data. Is there anything we can do to prevent losing our Thunderbird email information which includes mailing lists etc? How would be store this information which could be migrated to a new account on a new laptop. Any help will be very gratefully received. Thanks!
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Not sure if I got this right. You didn't bother to backup your data, and now after you lost everything you're asking for a miracle to get it restored?
Τροποποιήθηκε στις από το χρήστη christ1
No, I'm not asking for a miracle. Although I am amused at your username :-) I am not particularly IT savvy but am simply asking that if we back up moving forward, will we be able to port the data to a new laptop. Is there anything else we should do?
Backup is that thing we all should do and few ever actually do. This has been exacerbated by Operating system vendors (starts with M) that apparently think users do not need to do backups so only provide backup software on "Professional" versions.
However the humble USB drive and some backup software is rerally all you need. although I would ensure that the backup software is backing up the hidden appdata folders. Some do not. Like Microsoft they pretend the only important information is in your library folders. Makes for much smaller backups and what you do not know will not hurt you. Right :)
Additionally you could use the profile backup built into the import export tools add-on to make additional "mail" backups to say one drive or Google drive.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/
But be aware that the true value of any backup is not really known until you try and use it. I have seen businesses that have religiously backed up "stuff" having nothing useful when the time came because the backup was not backing up hidden folders like appdata, or backed up business databases, but not email. I would strongly suggest, if at all possible, that you use your backup to restore to another device and make sure it does what you think it does. Before it is to late to fix any deficiencies in the setup. Sure it takes time, but place a value on what you have lost.
I ... am simply asking that if we back up moving forward, will we be able to port the data to a new laptop.
In general it's recommended to backup the entire Thunderbird profile. After the incident you mentioned I'm still not sure if you still do have a working profile. Assuming there is a Thunderbird profile to backup: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profiles-tb#w_backing-up-a-profile
You can restore the backed up profile on the new computer: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb#w_restoring-a-profile-backup
Is there anything else we should do?