Solved Recover web browser profile after a Windows Reset?

I have an elderly friend who's computer was acting up. We could not fix the issue so we did a Windows Reset, keeping all the users files. I'd like to know, is there is any way to get the web browser profile(s) back? I'm looking at Edge and Firefox, on Windows 11 Home.

After the reset, we could log in with my friends PIN. That is about all the log in information that we have. I do not know if they previously had sync turned on for their profile in the browser., but even if so, we don't know what account it might have been linked to, and I doubt we would have the password for it.

I'm assuming that the profiles are still on the drive and we just need to find a way to link them to their browser.

Am I barking up the wrong tree, or is this possible?

Calab said:

we did a Windows Reset, keeping all the users files.

Click to expand...

Any reset of the OS clears the appdata folder and starts a new one. Your browser profiles are stored in this folder so your old browser profiles are lost unless you made an image of the system prior to the reset. If you did make a image, depending on what imaging app you used the image can be mounted and the old profile folders can be copied to replace what is now in the appdata locations after the reset. But if you don't have an image, you are SOL.

Do this with the browsers closed.
For FF It's in 2 locations of a system image.
C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

For Edge it's in C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data

Calab said:

I do not know if they previously had sync turned on for their profile in the browser., but even if so, we don't know what account it might have been linked to, and I doubt we would have the password for it.

Click to expand...

If sync was turned on, even if you are able to retain the old profile folders from an image, you generally do not need to log back in if you copy the entire User Data folder to the exact same machine or a new one, though token status can occasionally prompt a re-authentication so you might be required to login again at some point and you do not have the correct credentials to do so.

I was able to recover the profile easily. It was located in the users AppData folder in Windows.Old. I just needed to replace the existing one in the Users folder with the one from Windows.Old. All is well.