Can't Find Chrome Bookmark file in crashed drive

[killbill1231]

I had a windows 8.1 PC crash, it wasn't getting internet no matter any basic fixes I tried, so I just did a 'Refresh Without Affecting Your Files' but then it froze at "Setting up a few more things".

I made some posts and was told it did something like ran out of space and just could not complete the refresh/install, it kept freezing %3 "Setting Up a Few More Things". It was only a 2450GB drive, would have been nice if it warned me or something.

I then bought a new 1TB SSD and Windows 10 and was able to get most of my stuff back but I can't find the Chrome bookmark file(s) in
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks)

There's not even a Google folder before there.

I have Show hidden folders and files enabled.

I did not install Chrome yet on this Windows 10 drive because that might conflict with the old copy of Chrome. In my bottom left Search bar I searched 'bookmark', then search by Document, but it finds nothing either.


Along the lines I may have deleted a chrome icon in the old drive, I'm not really sure. I did have Chrome installed on the new Windows 10 drive at the time and maybe it was conflicting or something but I'm not sure if I even deleted a Chrome icon or anything Chrome or Google related in the crashed drive.

 

thanks

[killbill1231]

forgot to mention, obviously I didn't use sync or a google account to back these up.

Also, the drive I'm trying to get bookmarks from is not
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks)

It's D: drive, The new windows 10 is C drive.

[Gizmo]

Depending on what advice you read, the file "Bookmarks" - it does not have a file extension - can be found here:
C:\Users\<YOUR_USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

But if you had more than one profile in Chrome, it could be in "Default" or "Profile 1" or "Profile 2"

The easiest way of finding the "Bookmarks" file without having to worry about showing hidden files or navigating to the right folder, is to use a program called Everything - this quickly indexes every file on your hard drive(s) and is way faster and better than windows search, and it has a portable version too if you don't want to install it - I use it all the time because of its speed and ability to instantly narrow down a search.
Download it here: https://www.voidtools.com

When you load the program, All you need to do is type in "bookmarks", and it will list every location of that file. Obviously you are looking for the one on the D: drive, not anything that is found on C:

If it does find the old "Bookmarks" file
Click on the file once to highlight it, then either press Ctrl+C, or on the Menu bar click Edit > Copy
You can close Everything now if you want
Either on the desktop or a folder of your choice, paste the "Bookmarks" file you just copied (right click > Paste)
Now go to this website, which will convert the "Bookmarks" file into an HTML file that you can import in your newly installed copy of Chrome:

https://rongjiecomputer.github.io/chrome/bookmark-recovery/#windows

Click on "Choose a file" in the box
Save the HTML file to your hard drive, now you can import it into Chrome

[killbill1231]

I read various other forum threads which say your chrome bookmarks DO get removed from -Refresh Your PC without Affecting You Files-, but they should be moved to a newly created folder C:\Windows.old (or maybe in my case D:\), either way, I don't see the chrome or bookmarks files.

I was suggested Everything.exe and search for bookmarks and if not found assume it's gone. Remember this is a failed Refresh that keeps freezing at %3 'Setting Up a Few More Things", suposidly from the drive itseld running out of space, so maybe it never finished the :\Windows.old Chrome copying.

I do have Show Hidden Files and Folders enabled.
Someone said it could be in "Default" or "Profile 1" or "Profile 2".


Also was suggested:
If System Restore was enabled on the crashed drive you might be able to get your bookmarks using Shadow Explorer. Download the portable version.
Read the documentation. Click the dropdown box to select your drive letter of the crashed drive. If it finds any Restore Point it should let you browse to your Chrome Folder
https://www.shadowexplorer.com/downloads.html
https://www.shadowexplorer.com/documentation/manual.html


If neither works, I'll wait a few more days and maybe someone will come along with another solution, if not, then the drive is getting broken up into pieces and I'll definitely be sure to synch or back up bookmarks regularly for now on.

[Gizmo]

I downloaded the portable version of ShadowExplorer to try out and see what is possible - it looks like it can only recover the files (and drives) of the Windows system it is running in, there isn't an option to select which shadow copies it is searching, ie your old windows drive.
All I can say is try it, you may be lucky and it opens those too.

A good option would be to try Recuva, a hard drive recovery program, and see if it can find the deleted copy of the Bookmarks file.

I would be tempted to try both of these.

[killbill1231]

Shadowexplorer shows me a drop down to select C:/ (current working drive), D:/ (crashed 8.1 System Reserved) or E:/ (main crashed 8.1 drive). It shows nothing in the 8.1 drives though.


In the crashed drive, I clicked on windows.old or Windows.old(1) and got a permission error. tried again and pressed Continue as admininstrator and it shows the files (but no google folder or bookmarks where it would be).


Everything.exe doesn't find anything for 'bookmark' except for my current Edge C drive. Everything.exe does search both C and E (crashed) drive confirmed by searching for things only found on the E drive. BTW D:/ is the crashed drive too but is System Reserved and only a few Temp and Recovery files (a blank Recovery.text file) files.


With Windows 10 now installed, when I boot with both drives connected, W10 flashes a press any key to skip disc checking, for once I let that go through and it actually did complete and said it was doing it for the crashed E:/ drive, but seems like nothing changed and still can't find files. I then tried booting with only the E drive connected hoping it was somehow fixed but it did the same freeze at %3 "setting up a few more things" then red error box Restart the installation to proceed (or something like that, which would likely wipe everything though).

I then Tried ShadowExplorer but it shows nothing at all in the right window for D and E crashed 8.1 drive. C:/ (current Windows 10) shows it correclty like the instructions say "This is what ShadowExplorer looks like if everything works correctly."
So I guess there's not even a system restore point saved on the crashed drive, correct? I did have system restore enabled on that drive. I think I even tried that before 'Refresh your PC without affecting your files' caused this whole problem.

BTW, I uninstalled Everything.exe though control panel but I don't see ShadowExplorer to now uninstall it. Is it not shown because it's just the portable zip version I downloaded to desktop and is not actually an installed program, and I could just delete those files?

Someone asked if I installed Chrome on the new windows 10 drive, didn't say why but I'll do that now and do these checks again and can delete Chrome right after. I do plan on switching back to Chrome once this is all over (either solved or not).

also will try now: "A good option would be to try Recuva, a hard drive recovery program, and see if it can find the deleted copy of the Bookmarks file."

Last thing I'll try after any more suggestions if any, is boot with the 8.1 CD and only the 8.1 drive and Do whatever install option it shows least likely to wipe everything and hope that fixes it at least to make a Windows.old folder or something. I think the only option it has now though is to fully format and reinstall windows deleting anything on there now.

[killbill1231]

I installed Chrome to my new non-problem drive, searched the old drive for files, tried Everything.exe again but it found nothing. There's no new Google or Chrome folder in the crashed drive in E:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks
I also made sure to save a new bookmark in chrome because I read the boobkmark files won't even be created until you save one.


I then tried Recuva and set it to search the E:/
Recuva found 1.9 million E:/ files.
Then Searched 'bookmark' in Everything.exe didn't find anything on the E:/ but maybe it doesn't search Recuva results


Searched Recuva results, I specified 'bookmark' in E:/ didn't find anything. It takes a while like 30 mins to do a full 1.9 million file scan but I ended up doing that twice since unsure exactly how to search for a specific file name, then I clicked FILE NAME row top bar to show results in alphabetical order and scroll to b, and I do see several 'excellent' condition 'bookmark' files. Some are unrecoverable, or very poor but there's 5 Excellent.

There's 3 excellent named bookmarks, bookmarks_1, and bookmarks_3
And 2 excellent bookmarks.bak and bookmarks_1.bak

But I exported them to desktop, and when I copy paste them to my current chrome folder and overwite the existing, neither combination of any of these brings back any old bookmarks.
Is there a special way to do this? convert it to html or something and Import option Chrome has?

[patio]

When you move them to the desktop its just a shortcut....create a new folder....give each a name or # and copy them to there.

[Gizmo]

I posted a reply to this, don't know if it was removed....

Go to this website and upload the file(s) you recovered, I would start with the one with the latest modification time

https://rongjiecomputer.github.io/chrome/bookmark-recovery/#windows

[killbill1231]

I get  Error! The file is invalid. Try again! when I try to convert these bookmark and bookmark.bak files which Recuva recovered when using this tool that's supposed to convert them to usable .html
https://rongjiecomputer.github.io/chrome/bookmark-recovery/#windows



The only information I found on that are these two non-english translated posts, basically saying the files might be unusable?
https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/93223653?hl=pt-BR
https://www.drwindows.de/xf/threads/chrome-bak-datei-beschädigt.148054/


BTW, I know I ended up with bookmark, bookmarks_1 and bookmarks_2 because they would have otherwise overwrite each other. So I remove the _1 and _2 before trying to just copy paste them into the chrome folder. But I think I need to convert them first anyway.  Recuva says they're Excellent condition and does have other bookmark files in Poor or Unusable condition which I didn't extract from the results.



I right click these files>properties, it says it's either a 'file' for the bookmarks and the .bak ones says it's a .bak file.

When I try to open these files, I get a bunch of weird symbols like this á¥Wïø.
I don't want to copy paste too much in case there's a password or something in there.

I don't know what format this is, maybe there's something that can just convert it to English and then I can at least have text of what the bookmarks were?

Maybe extracting directly to desktop makes it a shortcut and I should have instead extracted to a folder. I'll try another Recuva scan in the meantime but doubtful that I only extracted Shortcuts to the decktop from Recuva.

[killbill1231]

I made a previous thread but it got real messy and confusing, I don't think a lot of people would bother reading it at this point.

In simple, with my windows 8.1 computer was fine but wasn't getting internet even though other PCs on router were. I tried some basic network disable then enable etc but nothing worked so I did a REFRESH YOUR PC WITHOUT AFFECTING YOUR FILES (yea, right). It kept freezing at %3 SETTING UP A FEW MORE THINGS. I was told the 240GB SSD ran out of space or something and basically bricked itself. Luckily I was able to get my most important stuff back from that drive but not my bookmarks. I did not synch anything nor did I use a Google account.

I then bought a new 1TB SSD and Windows 10.

When simply viewing the crashed drive there's not even a google folder where it should be in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks
But I've been able to retreive Chrome bookmarks and bookmarks.bak files through Recuva program. I saved them to C: drive BTW, in case Desktop would make them maybe just a 'shortcut'.

Recuva found several Poor condition and unrecoverable condition bookmark files, but 5 are Excellent with no bad clusters (or whatever it says).
Some people can open these files with wordpad or notepad and at least see the URLs and copy them, but I open them and get a bunch of weird symbols and/or Korean writing (Auto detect Google translate says it's Korean but doesn't convert to English, only a few English words here and there, nothing usable).
The file contents look like:
Ϧp¶[w 
or
繩湡

These files are like 5 pages long (I had like 350 bookmarks) and don't want to post too much in case there's passwords or something that can still be converted but you get the idea.

Chrome Bookmarks Recovery Tool https://rongjiecomputer.github.io/chrome/bookmark-recovery/#windows
"Error! The file is invalid. Try again!"
I get an error trying to convert these to .html which this is meant for.


Recuva found files named bookmarks, bookmarks_1, and _2, and bookmarks.bak, bookmarks_1.bak.
I tried manually putting these in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks
and removing the _1 and _2 one at a time and restarting Chrome but nothing worked. 


I removed .bak to make it just bookmarks, I read that should be done even if you also retreived the non-.bak bookmarks file. That didn't work.

I made a copy of the retrieved files and renamed them .html to Import and test each one at once through Chrome as an .html file. Chrome says it worked but there are no bookmarks.


Yes I will now regularly back up bookmarks. And noting REFRESH YOUR PC WITHOUT AFFECTING FILES is a last resort for a more serious problem if need be and to back everything up beforehand and expect a lot more to be deleted than it makes it seem.

[Gizmo]

I posted a reply in the other forum you are using, in the old thread - there is no new one anymore (removed / deleted)

[Allan]

I merged the threads. One thread per topic please.

[killbill1231]

Welp this is my last shot:

I'll try these recovery tools besides Recuva. I heard them may give different results.
sqlitebrowser.org
www.easeus.com
I'll also recovered random txt files with these and recuva and see if they're readable.
If I don't post back, assume this didn't work for the bookmarks files.
In the end, I'm much more happy that I was able to get my other more important stuff back than loosing my bookmarks.

I really don't see why it was a problem that I asked this question on multiple forums. Yes I asked on like 9 forums, this may be a tricky problem, but at least someone mentioned a recovery program which DID find 5 bookmarks files in "excellent condition' but ended up not being usable. And I don't get why the second thread was deleted, it could have helped others searching with similar problem.
Anyway, thanks for any suggestions, take care.

[Lisa_maree]

Some things to keep in mind when attempting data recovery.
1.Diagnose the drive which has your data to decide the best method to use to recover the data.

2.Disable the computer from writing to the drive you are recovering from, also don't run any tools which write to the drive and especially don't run CHKDSK

3. Make a bit copy to another drive of the drive you are recovering this can be to a file or a physical drive. DON'T run recovery software on an SSD drive. A SSD drive does a lot of house keeping
    in the background which can mess up the data you are trying to recover. 

4. If you are recovering files like chrome bookmarks use recovery software which can recreate the file structure and research where the files are stored. Copying off the files from the original
    locations is often best, good recovery software will give information about the condition of the file.
5. Recucva is a great tool, but I think you would be better with reclaim me in this situation. https://www.reclaime.com/