Deleted All Of Ie Favourites

[Noodles]

I was in the middle of installing a new program and must have ticked

the box clear IE Favourites along with cache and cookies etc.

Anyways I have a ton of important links in there. I checked the recycle

bin but it's empty. How do I access and use 'The last known best configuration'.

So I can go back maybe a day and then the favourites folder will be in tact.

[Artisan]

I was in the middle of installing a new program and must have ticked

the box clear IE Favourites along with cache and cookies etc.

Anyways I have a ton of important links in there. I checked the recycle

bin but it's empty. How do I access and use 'The last known best configuration'.

So I can go back maybe a day and then the favourites folder will be in tact.

I think that they might have gone forever but I'm not sure. I assume that you are using Windows XP so you might try "System Restore" to return you computer configuration to that before you lost you favourites. It's worth a try and good luck. The more expert amongst us might give you more definite advice.

[Noodles]

I was in the middle of installing a new program and must have ticked

the box clear IE Favourites along with cache and cookies etc.

Anyways I have a ton of important links in there. I checked the recycle

bin but it's empty. How do I access and use 'The last known best configuration'.

So I can go back maybe a day and then the favourites folder will be in tact.

I think that they might have gone forever but I'm not sure. I assume that you are using Windows XP so you might try "System Restore" to return you computer configuration to that before you lost you favourites. It's worth a try and good luck. The more expert amongst us might give you more definite advice.

Thanks for your reply, yes I'm on windows XP home edition. How do I start

and use the system restore?

Thanks again

[Tywais]

Look under the following directory: C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\Favorites - replace Admin with whatever your user name is. If there is nothing there and nothing in the recycle bin, afraid that they are gone. Also look under 'default user' and "all users" for favorites. One last thing is select the C: drive and right click select "Search" and enter "Favorites" to see if it may have been backed up by the program you installed.

One last thing and what was the name of the program that you were installing? May be a forum or support that can answer the question.

More details on system restore can be found here: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial56.html

Just found this list of files/programs that System Restore does not monitor and it includes Favorites.

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/filesfolders.html

Edited April 19, 2006 by tywais

[Artisan]

Thanks for your reply, yes I'm on windows XP home edition. How do I start

and use the system restore?

Thanks again

Left click "Start", hover over "All Programs", hover over "Accessories", hover over "System Tools" then left click "System Restore". Choose "Restore My Computer To An Earlier Time", left click "Next" and then choose your restore date.

[Noodles]

Thanks for all your replies, the system restore did not recover them, nor the other searches.

###### shame.

Thanks anyways

[wolf5370]

System Restore will not recover user files or profile objects (such as Sent To/Favourites/Desktop Icons/etc) - it is used to restore the system (Operating System) files and settings in the registry and in the Windows system libs. You should only really use this app if things have gone badly wrong with your system and it becomes unstable or unusable.

PS: You may be able to piece together some links from your IE History. Also, if you imported to FireFox, Netscape etc, then you may have a copy there. It ios a good idea to backup your profile after you rebuild it again as a safety net - or use something like Norton Ghost to do it for you.

[Artisan]

System Restore will not recover user files or profile objects (such as Sent To/Favourites/Desktop Icons/etc) - it is used to restore the system (Operating System) files and settings in the registry and in the Windows system libs. You should only really use this app if things have gone badly wrong with your system and it becomes unstable or unusable.

PS: You may be able to piece together some links from your IE History. Also, if you imported to FireFox, Netscape etc, then you may have a copy there. It ios a good idea to backup your profile after you rebuild it again as a safety net - or use something like Norton Ghost to do it for you.

Hi Wolf, I wasn't sure about System Restore and thank you for the clarification. Also, that's a good idea of yours about checking the IE history. Good luck Noodles

[rio666uk]

on my machine at home i found a whole load of *.dat files that stored visited web pages in... however i cant seem to find them on my work pc - so cant be sure of the location - however if you have a dig around in this lot, you should be able to piece something back together -

c:\documents and settings\[your username]\local settings\history

this will help retrace your most recent browsing - unless of course you cautiously clear the history cache after every surf

c:\documents and settings\[your username]\local settings\temporary internet files

you can find all sorts of cr@p in here - gif files, txt files, cookie files - but the column next to these files shows the internet address where they were picked up from too.

hope this helps

[udon]

Would it be too late to use a product like GoBack ?

[Artisan]

Would it be too late to use a product like GoBack ?

Does this work similar to "System Restore" which he has tried already? I'm not sure so I guess it's worth a try..

[JSixpack]

Would it be too late to use a product like GoBack ?

Yes. And now that System Restore has been used, it's almost certainly too late to use any undelete product.

Try Winspy to read your index.dat files, which contain a history of recent browsing. You can click to launch any links it finds and then add them again to your favorites list.