Crashed and lost my bookmarks

Question

Is there a way to get my bookmarks back after a crash wiped them out? (I shut down without closing Virtual PC, my computer got really mad...took me most of the morning to reconfigure everything, grrr)

Answer 1

The strange part is the hard crash on the shutdown,
losing unrelated files to Virtual PC and yet having
no errors reported on the HD. You could look at the
crash reporter in your log file (accessed via Console
in your Utilities menu), however, it's beyond me to
dicipher that type of information.
So here's my suggestions for more efficient
computing:
A few things that can make
computer life easier:
In Safari:
- Each day, go to the Safari Menu and "empty cache".
- In your User Library>Safari folder, you'll find a
file called "bookmarks.pilst". This file holds your
Bookmarks. Single-click on the file, then command
key + D to make a duplicate copy. Do this every few
weeks or whenever you add a lot of bookmarks. This
way, if anything weird happened to your bookmark file
(corruption), then you have a back-up to revert to.
- keep the cookies file clean of unnecessary items -
you can see the Cookies file in your Safari
Preferences>Security panel - click on the "cookies"
button. Remove any items you don't use regularly.
The one's you want to retain are those for banking
and credit card sites, Apple, and any other sites
requiring passwords. The rest can go simply by
single-click and then "remove".
Routine System Maintenance - This is so
important. Otherwise, little problems that go
unnoticed can become bigger ones, slowing down the
system, or even corrupting the hard drive. For
routine maintenance I use
OnyX. There is no charge for the
software, but I believe the developer asks for a
donation.
It's very easy to use. I run it twice a month. Once
it is installed, you would double click on the OnyX
icon in your application folder (or drag an icon to
your dock for quick access) to open the application.
After entering your administrator password, you
would select "automation". The panel looks like
this:
Select the same items I have checked and then select
"execute". The program takes about 5 to 10 minutes
to run. Leave your computer alone, that is don't
use it for anything else until OnyX is finished.
Once complete, restart the computer and you're good
to go.
Lastly, the most effective maintenance is having a
full backup of your system on an external hard drive.
All machines fail eventually, despite the best
maintenance. If you had a hard drive failure
without any backup, then you would lose all your
information, including documents, images, songs,
etc. Not a pretty picture.
For your system, you would purchase either an
external firewire drive for the older Mac machines
(G5/G4 or G3), or a USB or Firewire Drive for the new
Intel Machines. The key here is creating a "clone"
backup on the drive, which you back up regularly, or
at least once a week. For the backup process I use
SuperDuper. Very easy to use.
The initial backup takes about 1 to 2 hours.
Subsequent backups take 5 to 10 minutes. Total $$$
investment can be anywhere between $100 - $250
depending on the size of your Hard Drive.
Lastly, Please mark this post "solved" or "helpful"
to the right of my name (you'll need to log-on to the
forum). Helpful for others looking for a solved
solution to a similar question, also helpful for me.
Aloha from Big Island.
iMac G5 Rev C 20" 2.5gb
RAM 250 gb HD/iBook G4 1.33 ghz 1.5gb RAM 40 gb HD  
Mac OS X (10.4.8)   LaCie 160gb d2 HD Canon i960
printer
I have finally completed all the suggestions you had for me. I have aquired and installed Onyx which is cool, and I bought a back-up hard drive. I have a USB connection to it, and maybe that is why it is sooooo slow(?). I have Super Duper, and the idea of creating a clone sounded good, but the copying process was going to take a day and a half (rough estimate) at the rate it was going. Should I do it anyway?
Thanks for your help again on this old topic made new again. -garden girl