help! restoring data after hard drive crash

johnallen · July 13, 2009

Does anyone know the best way to restore data to zotero after a hard drive crash. I had saved my zotero files, compressed on the apple i disc. I lost my entire hard drive, so I have had to re-install zotero. I have no files in it at present. How can I get my zotero.sqlite and zotero.sqlite.back back into zotero? Thanks for any suggestions!

dstillman · July 13, 2009

http://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data

johnallen · July 13, 2009

Bizarre--in my profiles ther is no random string or zotero file

dstillman · July 13, 2009

I'm not sure what you're referring to. There won't be a 'zotero' directory in your Firefox profile until you install Zotero (in which case an empty library will be created) or you copy in your backup files.

johnallen · July 13, 2009

I think my zotero installation must have failed. I see zotero in my firefox window, but there is no zotero folder or zotero data in my firefox folder/files. Should I re-install. Thanks for your help, Dan.

dstillman · July 13, 2009

Then you're not looking in the right place. The page I linked to above provides instructions for opening your Zotero data directory via Zotero and for copying backup files back in.