[solved] Have I got this wrong? Dual boot, drives, apps and data

[lucky67]

After trying Mint from a flash drive and being fed up with Windows I decided to install Mint as a dual boot.
I had a HDD partitioned into a C and D drive (and recovery drive etc but these are the main ones) The computer shipped with these partions
The C drive was about 200gb and had the windows OS, and various other programs.
The D drive was about 400gb and was my data drive. I stopped using windows libraries/my docs years ago (after my profile and therefore data/files were overwritten so not recoverable when connecting to a work server went wrong) and instead keep them in as a folder on the hard drive as D:/asafedocs.
Both drives were almost full. C probably with windows bloat, D drive ...lots of things I should sort out
I freed up 40GB on the D drive and installed Linux using 20GB Root, 8GB swap and 12 GB home in the new patition. 12 GB home thinking most of my folders would stay in the rest of the D drive. (I did move all my data files onto an external hard drive before playing with this!)
I already used libre office, firefox and thunderbird. Firefox I can sign in and sync, Libre office I think I'm better using in Mint and my current profile is messed up anyway. Thunderbird ....is a bigger problem. My thunderbird file is massive - its backup only is 12+GB. (Had a disaster years ago transferring from hotmail to googlemail to thunderbird - I must have at least 30,000 emails, some duplicates, triplicates, some I need to keep, some I can get rid of - occasionally I sort them out into local folders - most of the original emails are no longer in either hotmail or google) I also have 6-7 imap/pop accounts (some are for groups I volunteer for).
So.....
Firstly should I have given myself more space as home? I can always go back and do a clean install or something I guess. Will I have more issues or can I put all my data back into D and continue accessing it from Windows and Mint? (Dreading what will happen with dropbox - I have that as a folder on my D drive too)
Secondly could I move thunderbird to my d drive? Could I then access it from windows and Mint?
I have looked at other answers for thunderbird on dual boot etc but some seem to be out of date and some I don't really understand...
I don't really have the space to have two versions of my massive thunderbird on this computer -and tidying it up is something I do when I'm waiting for something etc so would like them to sync/be the same in windows and Mint if possible
Thanks for any help ....I think my biggest problem is drowning in data!

[spamhog]

Iif you have read-write access to the Windows drive where you had your thunderbird profle you should be able to access it and use it from Mint. Do a backup first!

Also, if you go back to Windows after accessing that drive in Linux, there might be a forced disk check as in its own dirty mind Windows might decide the drive is dirty.

countless howtos on accessing windows drives
https://www.google.com/search?q=use+ntf ... from+linux

re-using an existing profile in a new Thunderbird install
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/us ... e-profiles
https://askubuntu.com/questions/378237/ ... -dual-boot
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1283013

[spamegg]

Sounds like your best option is to buy more hard disk space, even if you never used Linux.

[lucky67]

if you have read-write access to the Windows drive where you had your thunderbird profle you should be able to access it and use it from Mint. Do a backup first!

Thanks I'll read those links later - my brain is fried now. I do have a thunderbird backup (With the server thing and later a failed hard drive I back up everything - probably why I have too much data!)

Sounds like your best option is to buy more hard disk space, even if you never used Linux.

Funnily enough ...I've just bought a new laptop (Dell outlet) with a 1TB hard drive -the plan being to sort things out as I moved files across. (This computer would then either have a badly needed fresh windows install to be used by my children or be used by me running linux whilst I get used to it)
New computer arrived 4 days ago - it was a blue screening nightmare from the start - after spending hours on the phone to tech support I have been told it isn't a hardware problem but a software issue, I'll need to reinstall windows etc etc - I've given up and am trying to return it.
Decided to go for the Linux install as when I used it from the flash this clunking sluggish nightmare became a speedy dream. Downside was it didn't save my macros etc. I am behind with my work but get so impatient/infuriated with it that I waste time trying to speed it up - eg what is it doing in the background causing it to use 100% cpu when I only have two calc docs open??? Thought it would be quicker to install and learn to use linux (and I'm sure once I get going it will be! )

[lucky67]

Thanks
Have got it working - can access same profile in windows and linux. (Had read/write access to windows drive and just pointed my linux thunderbird to my profile in Windows following one of the links)
Have reinstalled files onto my 'D: drive' and can access in both windows and linux...
Just need to make sure when/if I move to linux only and get rid of windows I move the profile!
(which is looking likely as using linux is like having a new computer (or better in my case...)
Thanks again