Windows 10: Are these crashed drive Recuva-recovered Chrome bookmarks usable?

I made a previous thread but it got real messy and confusing, I don't think a lot of people would bother reading it at this point.

In simple, with my windows 8.1 computer was fine but wasn't getting internet even though other PCs on router were. I tried some basic network disable then enable etc but nothing worked so I did a REFRESH YOUR PC WITHOUT AFFECTING YOUR FILES (yea, right). It kept freezing at %3 SETTING UP A FEW MORE THINGS. I was told the 240GB SSD ran out of space or something and basically bricked itself. Luckily I was able to get my most important stuff back from that drive but not my bookmarks. I did not synch anything nor did I use a Google account.


When simply viewing the crashed drive there's not even a google folder where it should be in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks
But I've been able to retreive Chrome bookmarks and bookmarks.bak files through Recuva program. I saved them to C: drive BTW, in case Desktop would make them maybe just a 'shortcut'.

Recuva found several Poor condition and unrecoverable condition bookmark files, but 5 are Excellent with no bad clusters (or whatever it says).
Some people can open these files with wordpad or notepad and at least see the URLs and copy them, but I open them and get a bunch of weird symbols and/or Korean writing (Auto detect Google translate says it's Korean but doesn't convert to English, only a few English words here and there, nothing usable).
The file contents look like:
p[w
or
繩湡

These files are like 5 pages long (I had like 350 bookmarks) and don't want to post too much in case there's passwords or something that can still be converted but you get the idea.

Chrome Bookmarks Recovery Tool Chrome Bookmarks Recovery Tool
"Error! The file is invalid. Try again!"
I get an error trying to convert these to .html which this is meant for.


Recuva found files named bookmarks, bookmarks_1, and _2, and bookmarks.bak, bookmarks_1.bak.
I tried manually putting these in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks
and removing the _1 and _2 one at a time and restarting Chrome but nothing worked.


I removed .bak to make it just bookmarks, I read that should be done even if you also retreived the non-.bak bookmarks file. That didn't work.

I made a copy of the retrieved files and renamed them .html to Import and test each one at once through Chrome as an .html file. Chrome says it worked but there are no bookmarks.


Yes I will now regularly back up bookmarks. And noting REFRESH YOUR PC WITHOUT AFFECTING FILES is a last resort for a more serious problem if need be and to back everything up beforehand and expect a lot more to be deleted than it makes it seem.

:)

 

Recover Google Chrome bookmarks

Hi! I need help recovering my Google Chrome bookmarks. I was getting an error while searching in Google Chrome so a Microsoft help desk employee uninstalled and reinstalled Google Chrome for me however he neglected to tell me that I would lose my bookmarks
and extensions. I did a system restore and the bookmarks did not come up automatically. I did a little research and found that I do have the bookmarks.bak file on my computer still. What can I do at this point to restore my Google Chrome bookmarks? I really
appreciate any advice you can offer! Thanks!

 

Google Chrome Bookmarks

After last nights crash, I have my Bookmarks here on Chrome but not my latest ones. I have a saved backup of those Bookmarks and my question is as follows ...
Can I import from that saved file and if so, will the Bookmarks from that file simply over-write the ones I presently have here and add the new ones to the list here in Chrome.
Or do I have to completely delete my Bookmarks from Chrome and then retrieve them from the saved file.

 

Recover Google Chrome bookmarks

Chrome bookmarks are stored in the profile directory for each Chrome user.

Inside the C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default directory are two files. Bookmarks, and Bookmarks.bak. One is for your current bookmarks, and the other one (with the .bak extension) signifies that it is a bookmarks backup, if anything
goes wrong Bookmarks.bak gets overwritten every time you close Chrome.

If you don’t see the .bak file extension and just see two files named Bookmarks, click Organize menu > select Folder and search options.

In the Folder Options window, click over the View tab and uncheck Hide extensions for known file types option. You’ll now see the previously hidden .bak extension.

To restore the backup, close all open Chrome browser windows. With Chrome closed, rename the Bookmarks file to Bookmarks.old and rename Bookmarks.bak to Bookmarks (You should probably make a copy of both Bookmarks files and put them into another folder before
you do any renaming).

You’ll see your bookmarks when you relaunch Chrome.