How to get Mozilla Firefox bookmarks again after formatting?

[Guest]

Laptop: Lenovo Y410 OS: win XP sp3 AntiVirus: Norton Internet Security 2009 Back in the Philippines, I was using my laptop normally. No problems. I could connect to the internet, download stuff with p2p, etc. About a week ago, we arrived in Las Vegas and have been living with my uncle's. I was enjoyed his really really fast internet (well, compared to my connection back in the Philippines, It was incredibly fast). I was able to download stuff of interest and also surf normally. The problem occurred after I visited a pornsite (and I've been visiting this pornsite back then so, I had confidence that It didn't pose a threat to my system) (and please, I don't give a **** about what you think about me If I visit porn sites) My laptop started hanging. I have to hold the power button just to turn it off. Usually, windows would show an error that "the laptop didn't turn off properly" blah blah... It didn't. After my next attempts of rebooting the laptop, about 5 minutes into operation, it would slow down, and after a few seconds, it would freeze and after trying to run task manager, it would sound off a loud beep that wouldn't end unless I turn off the laptop by holding the power button. This happens when I'm connected to the net. This also happens when I'm not connected but gives my laptop more normal run time, and eventually hangs. I tried running system restore, It said that "it couldn't help solve the problem". I tried running system restore while in safe mode and it was successful. I rebooted back into normal and the same problem occurred (hang, loud beep). I tried doing a system scan in safemode (since in normal mode, it would hang right away), and it found 1 threat (mebroot) and said (Norton) to have resolved it. Fortunately, I had a back up OS (win XPsp3 again installed on a separate partition). I ran it, and connected to the internet. I surfed to google, fry's, target, (since I was shopping for stuff). After about 20 minutes into browsing, the same thing happened to my laptop (without browsing porn). It hanged, and sounded a loud beep again. My laptop is a year old, and warranty doesn't cover it any more. I want to know if I'm having hardware problems or software problems. Thanks! Happy New Year!


_____________
grow taller

 

[viljo]

i love a bit of porn too :mrgreen:

a system behaving like that is a usally a build up of, adware, spyware what ever you wanna call it.
usally anti virus will detect that kinda stuff and move it to a vault for it to be removed.
System restore won't acheive a thing, i know!
problem is if the system is running so bad you can't perform a proper scan.
so safe mode to my knowleage is your only way. post weather or not it will allow you to scan in safe mode.
restoring always gave me some time to play with!
unless someone can kick in with stronger advice, don't send it to a shop, i love these kinda problems. I'm searching the net for more solutions, and will ask a buddy for advice if needed.
infact since you probley can not search the internet yourself, wait a bit i'll keep updating,

 

[viljo]

so far the best advice i've found is this:

What is BartPE and PE Builder?

Bart's PE Builder helps you build a "BartPE" (Bart Preinstalled Environment) bootable Windows CD-Rom or DVD from the original Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 installation/setup CD, very suitable for PC maintenance tasks.

It will give you a complete Win32 environment with network support, a graphical user interface (800x600) and FAT/NTFS/CDFS filesystem support. Very handy for burn-in testing systems with no OS, rescuing files to a network share, virus scan and so on.
This will replace any Dos bootdisk in no time!

Requirements to build:
The files from your Windows Installation CD-Rom.
Supported Windows versions are:

requirements to build
Windows XP Home Edition (must be slip streamed with Service Pack 1 or higher)
Windows XP Professional (must be slip streamed with Service Pack 1 or higher)
Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
PE Builder runs on Windows 2000/XP/2003/BartPE systems.
CD/DVD writer if you want to creat a bootable CD/DVD.

Getting started

use a friends computer or another one!

This page will help you create your very first BartPE CD. It assumes that you are using Windows XP.


Make sure that your system has about 500MB of free disk space!


Download the latest PE Builder version (self-installing package) and install it.


Start PE Builder (pebuilder.exe). When you start PE Builder for the first time it will ask if you agree with the license agreement.


Now PE Builder will ask to search for windows installation files. If you don't have your windows XP setup/installation files on your system you must insert the original Microsoft Windows XP installation/setup CD at this point.
The files you have at c:\windows are not installation files. They are your already installed files! :shock:
Click "yes" to start searching. PE Builder will now search all fixed- and CD-Rom drives for Windows installation files. This will take some time. When more than one valid location is found, a dialog will appear where you can select which location you want to use.


At the main PE Builder dialog, select the "Burn to CD/DVD" option. When you are using an erasable medium, make sure that the "AutoErase RW" option is enabled. The "burn using" option should be set to "StarBurn". Select your CD writer device from the Device list.


Hit the "build" button. PE Builder will now ask you to create a BartPE directory, answer with "yes".


The license for your Microsoft Windows XP product is shown. Read it and agree to it to continue.


PE Builder will now start building BartPE. This will take a few minutes.
You will see a lot of files getting copied and/or decompressed, the ISO image build and the data recorded to your CD/DVD writer.
If the data verify was correct and there where no errors reported you can boot the CD/DVD!

DOWNLOAD HERE! :mrgreen:

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

FROM THERE I GUESS IS TO INSTALL NORTON ON THE VIRTUAL MACHINE OR RUN A SCAN IF IT'S PRE INSTALLED.
THEN SEARCH FOR INFO ON THE NET CAUSE THEY SAY THIS CRAP CAN COME BACK, WEEKLY SCANS SHOULD DO THE JOB!

LET US KNOW HOW IT GOES........

 

[dennis1978]

LoL
Depending on the beep;
it is either your winblows system.
Which is pretty normal for that to happen on that system.
It beeps and crashes whenever it feel likes it; on a standard installation.

Or either it is the motherboard; then you're probably in trouble.
Those motherboard beeps actually have a certain meaning.
You can look them up, google will know.

Then, to browse those shitty sites; why not use a vmWare player and a live cd.
When you get infected you press reset on the vmPlayer and E presto.
A new clean NOT infected system. :O

Dennis does use windows aswell though. But he also use linux a lot :P
He never use spyware, anti virus or whatever...

Also, yeah the cd made by Bart Verweij is cool.
He also a Dutch dude, like Dennis himself :)
His cd is gooooood.

The best advice i can give you:

Use a liveCd to just boot into a temporary system:
Don't load it into the vmWare player;
no;

1- burn the iso file to a cd as bootable image with imgBurn (h++p://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download).
2- Put in cd tray when done;
3- press reset on pc.

This will boot a brand spanking new fast awesome linux system for you.
Or unix, or whatever superior system you choose to use instead of winblows.
With impressing desktop and everything you need and more for FREE.

It's a much better line of defence against any pigs aswell.
You press reset, they can't find anything on your pc.
It WAS all booted straight into the RAM memory when you fired up the pc.
Reset clears the complete system from the memory.

Also, that makes it @#%$%^&^&* fast, booting it into the memory :)
There is pretty much no loading time like that when starting programs.
Nothing can beat that.

Lookup live cd.
Learn about them.

Find them there:
h++p://distrowatch.com/

Something for anyones taste.
Choices!
Unlike the winblows crapola.

Download iso file, burn, boot.
No cops can touch that.
As soon as the power is cut off from the computer, byebye evidence. :mrgreen:
Keep touchy data on a usb stick, a smartcard or sd card or something.
Or something you can trust more: but thats' all up to you.

Now when this cd booted you onto the desktop;
you should be able to mount the infected harddrive;
then look for those damn bookmarks :)

Where those are depends on the browser you used.

This works the same as Bart V.'s cd, only is much more modern :)

But ofcourse, this is only theoretical:
I have no reason do use such shady tricks.
I think it is safe to assume not anyone on this site needs such info,
that's why i share this with y'all :finga:

Any questions:

pm me.


[EDIT]
When you formatted your drive;
you might want to look into data recovery,
it is possible. Just not for the average joe.
Maybe some generic program is able to recover some stuff for you :)

The easiest is to considered them lost;
and take the loss as a well understood lesson.
[/EDIT]

 

[viljo]

That is true beeps can indicate system failure.

I'd personally set liux up on a spare computer, it takes some time learning to cd around.
linux can be a headache. use it when you have free time and not when you need to do something important.

Hey dennis I used my first wifi hack on myself and it was a failure, not enough packets i reckon.
Thing is I noticed it reset my passphrase, is that normal? what kinda havic does that cause for isp?

 

[Guest]

Just a small question, does your laptop rest on a flat & hard surface when you use it?

 

[dennis1978]

Hello viljo,

yes maybe it's true that linux takes time to learn;
especially 'cause most people only learned to use windows.
Altough it is not that hard: it does take time to learn linux PROPERLY.
But for an office employee it is fine.
It is also all they get where Dennis is in charge of ICT.

Also, what hack did you perform on the network?
Sniffing data with man in the middle, or monkey in the middle attack?
Or just taking packets from the ether to see see if there is something interesting going on?

What app did you use for that?

I don't really know what you mean with changing the passphrase;
was it changed on the actual internet service provider server?

So, this mean you must login to your imap / pop3 email with thw NEW pass?
Or to change data from YOUR account, on the ISP server you login with the NEW passphrase?

If so, it is not a biggie if it was only on your account,
untill you ransack the network and do it to all ip's that the ISP server hand out.

That'll cause some mayhem. The key there is to hi-jack those first probably, and that requires the original user
to be offline and a little skill. Probably, mac-address can be used to get more leverage,
or either make new malicious packets look completely legit while the target is online.

It all depends on what the attacker is doing, or wants to do.

But if you can explain a little more in detail; then i can probably help you further.

You might want to look into backtrack 3.
With metasploit framework.

That's what the bfi techies use.
The thing with that is that they have money enough so they also
use at least two more exploit deploiment frameworks, that i know of:
Core impact and Canvas.
And be prepared to pay tens of thousands of dollars to obtain a copy.
But with those you can just scan a vulnerable server on the net;
deplay 1 or more exploits;
BOOM! Job done...
You own the remote machine from there on,
or have leverage to own it in the next attack.
Sometimes a few attack vector need to be setup to actually overtake the machine.
But it's just stunningly cool if one makes it work.

You can write your own exploit ofcourse and deploy that on remote machines.
Metasploit is free of charge btw :O

But anyway, this is going way too far off topic.
Just give me a pm if you want to know more.



Then finally,

Tiax is probably the only one seeing the obvious here:
overheating due to no ventilation.



To the Original Poster:

Downnload a copy of coreTemp and monitor the cpu's temperatures.
Better would be to get GKrellm to work on the windows pc so you can monitor ALL hardware.
It think there is a ported copy that work for windows around on the net.
Google for it if you are interested.


Peace :)

 

[tryptonaut]

back to your question in the title, how to get your Firefox Bookmarks back?
Firefox stores bookmarks in your userprofile on the system drive. It's a file called bookmarks.html for Firefox <3 and starting from Firefox 3 the file is called "places.sqlite"
I can't tell you the exact path right now because I'm on a German Win7 and that uses different folder names than an English XP but it should be in "your user name folder\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles\somenumbers.default\ "

To avoid the troubles of locating this file I recommend using the xmarks plugin for Firefox - it stores your bookmarks in an online account, so you can synchronize them on different computers or get them back when you have to re-install. Very nice plugin if you don't mind uploading your bookmarks on their site. However I'd disable the function to upload saved passwords - better: don't ever enable saving passwords in Firefox in the first place.
I mean I don't give a shit if some hackers stole my links from the xmarks site - go have fun with them, they're good sites! :)
If someone were able to steal my passwords that would be a whole other story...

 

[tryptonaut]

LoL
Depending on the beep;
it is either your winblows system.
Which is pretty normal for that to happen on that system.
It beeps and crashes whenever it feel likes it; on a standard installation.
[/EDIT]

If your hardware is okay then Windows doesn't beep and crash "whenever it feels like it". This is an old myth from the Win95 days (when that was actually the case) and the myth is repeated again and again by people with shitty hardware and dusty cpu coolers who also install every shit they can find and never uninstall anything.

Since I have been using Windows XP (and probably Win2000 but I can't remember for sure) I haven't had one Windows crash (bluescreen or total hang). I've had shitty software freeze the system for a while, but when you kill the process, Windows goes back to normal. If you totally fuck up your system with faulty drivers and auto-run services you might also be able to freeze the whole system.

But in 99% of the cases, spontaneous restarts and total Windows freezes or bluescreens point to faulty or overheated hardware.

Voir la pièce jointe 4335

 

[dennis1978]

Trypto:

You're so full of shit, i don't know whether to laugh or cry.

the problem with the microsoft crap is that you cannot build a good house
on a soggy, crappy foundation.
You should try it once :)

It must be rebuild from scratch, and they will never do it, they can't.
Even their own software is not compatible with the latest system they make THEMSELVES.
Windows 7?
LoL

Vista, wasn't it utter crap?

Like 60 gigabyte of utter useless rubbish data
which did nothing at all except crash, hog resources and not run software?

LoL. It's just one long shitlist with microsoft crapware.
XP pro is doable. It's stable.

Windows usually is crap, and the whole world has been mindwarped to
believe otherwise, it's so bad they often don't know about other os's like linux.
Computer outlets NEVER sold or offered anything else then WINBLOWS up to a few years ago.
Now, what does that mean?
You know what monopoly means?
Funny enough, mr Gates is a member of the Bilderburg group. LoL.
Maybe it mean something to the smart readers here :)

Windows is the crappiest of the crappiest.
Yes it works. But that's all it does, and not even always.

Let's do a comparrison:
A lada is a car. Look it up. It can drive, break. Etc. It even has heaters and lights :O

Then again, it's not a mercedes. Both cars, yes. Not the same by a long shot.

Windows sucks balls and ass.
Specially developed for the clueless enduser who doesn't know...
Or doesn't need to know.
Sucking up all recourses the pc has when idling, which makes it need a new pc every new o.s. release.
LoL thats' just fucking hylarious.
Gamers also need it, although it shouldn't be like that, unfortunately it is.
Due to the game developers though.

Do YOU know what exactly happens when the system auto updates?
Ever fired up a packet sniffer?
Windows systems don't care much about your privacy :)

so quit the pro american-government-sounding windows propaganda, it's gay :S
If i offended you, touch luck. Accept the truth for what it is.

Don't go posting gay ass comics which are writting by a blind monkey with one arm,
if you have no evidence to back up your little story.

fucking windows bullshit propaganda...What are you, bill gates his secret lover :S
Or do you just like to pay for a system you never get to OWN? You like renting a system
which is full of holes, and need updatesd every month?
They can't even install THEIR OWN software without a reboot.

Let me explain it to you like it really is:

when you rent a car, would you want it to get CRITICAL repairs every first tuesday of the month?
What if that car suddenly crashed into a "bluescreen of DEATH"?
Would YOU want to pay for a rental, which exists in such a crappy dangerous state?

Would such a car be considered normal? Would such abomination be allowed in this world?
Why windows doesn't have to live up to a certain consumer quality standard?
Hmmm...the word "bilderburg" is starting to echo in my head...

Fucking microshit crapware. I hate it...

Anyway, i'll quit ranting now.
It's going way too far off topic. AGAIN :)