I assume you mean profile FOLDER. With ver 102, tools>import will set it up for you. Or, if just starting TB and the email wizard appears, ignore it, click the Home tab and there will be an Import option on that page.

Thanks for your reply, I admit I am a bit lost at the moment.Yes, folder is ulifxvmx.default which is under thunderbird>profiles. How do I access tools>import , is this in Thunderbird? I had started TB after the restore and only see all new messages .

OK, it seems you already have it installed, and you see new messages, but not old ones? I presume this is a POP account? Does everything else seem right, such as addressbook? It will help to see your profile. You can view it by going to help>moretroubleshootinginformation, scroll down to Profile Folder, click 'open profile', from there you will see a folder named Mail (for POP accounts) and one named IMAPmail (for IMAP accounts). Assuming yours is POP, click the Mail folder. If your account appears here, then your message folders will be under it. If not, click the Local Folders and check there. Message folders are in sets (e.g., SENT, SENT.msf). Let me know what you see.

Address book is there but only contains new addresses. I'm using 2 email accounts. (btinternet.com and ij.net)

Under TB>profiles>6dly3an0.default-release>Mail>mail.btinternet.com>"empty" same for ....>Mail>local folders. Under TB>profiles>6dly3an0.default-release>Mail>ImapMail>mail.ij.net>INBOX.sbd>"empty"

Puzzling. Carbonite appears to not do a full backup. Either that, or you have more than one profile. You can check that by help>moretroubleshootinginformation, scroll down to Profiles and click 'about:profiles' to see if other profiles are there.

Under profiles are 2 folders. >0mzbs5pm.default which is empty and >6dly3an0.default-release which is the one I sent you. There does seem to be a lot of files under Local Disk(C:) which is the only disk I have.

On C: there is a folder >Restored from Carbonite which has 2 sub folders, >Restore Filepath Too Long and >Users>Bob>Carbonite Restored OLD User Settings (which contains a date folder 5/5 22, which was before the crash. Any help? Maybe I can phone you and we can kill the problem quicker. (or I get you to reverse login?) Thanks anyway

can you do a screenshot of the carboniterestoredOldUserSettings folder?

Then 2 trees Application Data and Local settings each with a tree of folders.

Then 2 trees Application Data and Local settings each with a tree of folders.

Two folders look interesting: Application Data and Local Folders. Could you post screenshots of those?

Better to list them.... Application data>Macromedia>Flash player>#shared objects>DF69VZIR>www.bbc.co.uk>emp>releases> and so on

Local Settings>Application data>Google>Chrome>User Data>Default>Pepper Data>Shockwave Flash>Writable Root>1)#Shared objects,2)macromedia.com: 1)TUG3DTG4>aa.online-metrix.net,admin.brightcove.com, etc 2)support>flashplayer>sys: #g-ecx.images-amazon.com, #gp1.wac.edgecastcdn.net, etc

OK, from here, it seems you have an IMAP account, which is fortuitous, as all your messages are still available online. Any local folders seem lost, unless Carbonite stores them in an unusual place. You might ask them where they store files instead of keeping them all together. I had expected the backed up profile to work immediately.

OK , I was sure I had a POPbut I'll ask Carbonite and see what they say. I'll try again to restore the original folders and if all else fails I can do another Carbonite restore. Thanks for trying to help me, in spite of my confused messages to you! I'll sign off now unless you have any further insights for me to try.

Possibly my error. I did see on one of your posts a reference to ij.net in a folder named IMAPmail but that was also in the Mail directory, so the ij.net account is unclear. Good luck on your pursuit.

Are you still available? I deleted the thunderbird tree from live system, then copied backup tree from desktop. When starting TB again I get error message. 2nd time I was asked for new User name and details. Any suggestions?

I don't know what you mean by tree. Did you locate a profile to use? Error message? The prompt for new email account is Thunderbird's response when it can't find an account and is trying to assist you by setting up a new one. So far, it appears from your posts that Carbonite has none of your profile data. If possible, I suggest contacting them to determine where they store that information. Another approach would be to check your account online. You might see all the messages you care about there and setting up a desired account may be sufficient to move forward.

By tree I mean all the subfiles under each level of data.

New profile from the restore is -    ulifxvmx.default

First time I only deleted profile then I tried deleting full TB folder and subfiles but error message was no profile found.

At this point, it appears there is nothing saved in the restore. Did you find any files that may have been messages? They normally end in .msf Otherwise, I still suggest contacting Carbonite for assistance in locating where they put the folder. Its normal location would have been c:\users\<yourID>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird.

I've sent e-mail to Carbonite asking them not to delete the original backup, but there should be a reliable copy on my desktop. I'm expecting a vistor soon so I might not respond for a while. Thanks anyway.

Just checked and nothing for user bob but new .default file folder for user author. Tried that and it comes up with "set up your existing Email Address". Does this mean it is working?