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I'm not so sure if this is possible for you, but try to swap the hard drive so you can read it on the new laptop.

After pull-up Firefox, click on bookmarks at the top > organize bookmarks > bookmark manager opens > file > export > html and save to a flash drive. Voila!

Import them back to Firefox on the hard drive you will use as your main HD.

Check out Foxmarks, a Firefox plug-in that syncs your bookmarks to a remote location so that all your bookmarks can be synched across multiple computers.

http://www.foxmarks.com/

Any chance you had VNC installed on your laptop, that you could just VNC into it w/o having to connect it to a monitor?

In Firefox, you can go to "bookmarks->organize"
Then when the new little window pops up just select "file->export...".

This will allow you to save your entire bookmark list as a single html file. Which you can email to yourself, copy to a thumb drive, whatever you want to do to get it on your new PC.

Then on the new PC you just follow the same steps, but select "import..." to copy them back over.

I tried that bookmark sync plugin once and it destroyed all my bookmarks. That was a while ago so its probably been fixed by now.

I would say that rather than trying to put the old drive into your new laptop, and all the potential warranty issues that could arise from opening up your new machine, try and get a 2.5" drive enclosure. They're readily available, a google search will throw up plenty starting at very low prices.

Take the drive from your old laptop, usually a matter of releasing a few small screws, place it in your shiny new enclosure. Connect this, via USB, to your new laptop, and it will show up as an external drive. You can then navigate through the file structure on the old drive and find your firefox bookmarks, along with anything else that may have been overlooked in the transfer.

Once you've got everything off the old drive, you can format it, and you then have an external drive useful for backup purposes etc. Since all that was wrong with your hold laptop is the backlight, you may as well scavenge it for parts!

You might want to consider using del.icio.us, Netvibes, Google Homepage or something similar from now on, too. Then you can access your bookmarks from anywhere.

yobrett -

I don't know what a VNC is. Please explain.

RobertT - that's a great idea. I didn't even know such a thing existed. I'm looking at them online but see that they are compatible with XP but none so far with Vista. Do they have to be compatible with both?

cinema - a Dell hard drive won't fit in a Toshiba. And I wouldn't want to do that anyway on the chance that it could destroy something.

When I had my old computer I tried del.icio.us and didn't take the time to figure it out. Now I wish I had. I'm also confused by Clipmarks. Am I really that dense or does it take a while to figure that one out as well?

Anne,

I don't know what VNC is either but the rest of his instructions are valid:

After you export the bookmarks using firefox a file will be created with all your bookmarks in it. Transfer this file to your new laptop and then open your bookmarks-->organize window as before and then choose file--> import.

The computer will prompt you for the location of your transferred bookmark file and you should direct it. Then Firefox should do the rest.

Good luck!

Anne - to the best of my knowledge USB is USB and I've never had any trouble using an external hard drive over USB with Vista or XP. In theory, any empty enclosure should do the job, you put your drive in it and hook it up to your machine.

Just from having a quick look, I can't see why either this one from Amazon, or this one shouldn't work fine with Vista.

But really all any of the cases are doing is providing a conversion from the hard drive connection to a USB connection. I'm running Vista and used this method to connect the drive from my old laptop. The one I used is here, but it has some extra bells and whistles you mightn't want.

Juice2 - unless I'm missing something the problem lies in your first statement : "After you export the bookmarks using firefox..." How do I export them if I can't see them? The bookmarks I need are in the old computer.

I think I'm going to get the 2.5 enclosure. If I understand Robert correctly, I can hook it up to my old computer and new computer and read the hard drive on my new computer. And then I can use is as an external hard drive.

Rather than use foxmarks, I suggest the del.icio.us bookmarks (http://del.icio.us/help/firefox/extension) for Firefox. The built in tagging and syncing with del.icio.us is far better than anything else I've used.

Also, VNC is a way to share your screen over the network. TightVNC (http://www.tightvnc.com/) has always worked well for me. If you install the server on your broken laptop and the client on your new computer, you'll be able to use the client computer to control the server just like you were sitting at it.

@ anne - with the hard drive enclosure you actually take the hard drive out of the old computer, place it in the enclosure, and then that can be connected to your new computer via usb. they also sell them at comp usa type stores, if you don't want to buy online.

I'm excited about getting a hard drive enclosure because I have an even older computer stored away with things on it. I didn't want to toss it until I could retrieve everything. Now I can finally get all my old files, etc. and get rid of the laptops.

I use the del.icio.us bookmarks plugin and it's the best thing ever. Way better than actual bookmarks. Hit the button, and all of your bookmarks come up and you can actually tag them by subject. If you feel like it, definitely take a few minutes to give it a shot.

Another firefox bookmark sync option is Google Browser Sync. I tried foxmarks and prefer the google one personally.

http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync/

Not that it will help with the current problem, but the external enclosure sounds like a good solution.