Better would be to just create a new profile. If it works, then you can follow the rest of these instructions to migrate the data over.
Close Thunderbird and open the profile manager.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_manager or move your old profile out of it's default location (
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder#Thunderbird ) to force Thunderbird to open in the profile manager. Create your new profile, naming it something other than "default", and setup your accounts. Make sure it's working including for sending and receiving mail.
Then I want you to install this extension: ImportExportTools:
http://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/mboximport-en.htmlWhen it's installed, first select the folder you want to import into and then go to Tools>Import/Export in Mbox/eml format and under it, Import Mbox File. In the next screen you will get a choice to either import a selected file or to select a directory. Select the third option and when you get to the Windows file navigation window, find your OLD profile User\Library\Thunderbird\Profiles\*random string.profile name*\Mail and then select each account folder one at a time. This means that you will need to go through the Tools menu once for each account. The messages will be in a new folder named for the original with three numbers, ex: Inbox123, which you can then move the messages out of and sort as you want.
For your address books, install the MoreFunctionsForAddressBook extension from the same website as ImportExportTools. When it's installed you will have some new menu items under Tools in the address book manager. First open the manager with Tools>Address Book. Now go to it's Tools and find Actions for addressbook. Under it, select Import addressbook from mab file. It will ask you to create a new address book by naming it. Do so. Then, in the file navigation window that opens, find your old profile and look for the files with the .mab extension. Your personal address book is abook.mab and the collected is history.mab. You may have others that you either imported from another program or created yourself. You will need to do them one at a time. Once in, you can drag and drop the addresses from the imported books into your new Personal/Collected address book.
If you have any filters set in your accounts, the files you want to copy is msgFilterRules.dat This goes in the Mail/*account* folder. For Junk controls training, the file is training.dat and it is kept in the top level of the profile folder.
When you have completed this, compact your folders now and regularly in the future.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_foldersThat should be everything. Let me know how it turns out.