Hi kdnm, sorry to hear about this problem. I am so not looking forward to this Windows 10 update that seems to be giving several users problems.

But also, Firefox 67 changed some things, so:

If you haven't already, could you close out of Firefox and do a normal Windows shutdown and restart to complete any pending updates and release any file locks.

If Firefox again starts up without your data, could you check whether your stuff is available in a different profile, as follows:

Profile Manager Page

Inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.

This page should list at least one profile and could list many. Each will show links to a pair of folders; please ignore those for now.

The profile that Firefox is currently using will have this:

This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted.

Actually, please do not delete anything here, don't use any Remove buttons.

Do you have another profile named default or default-longnumber listed on this page? If so, you can check whether it is the one you were using recently by clicking its Launch profile in new browser button.

If it isn't what you want, simply close that new window.

If it IS what you want, back on the about:profiles page, click the Set as default profile button for that profile so Firefox uses it automatically at the next startup.

Any progress so far, or do we need to keep looking for your data in some other places?

Thanks for your help but that wasn't it so far. There was a second default profile but when I launched it there were still no bookmarks. Can you think of anything else? Thanks.

How about other settings? Which profile seems the most like the one you were using before?

By the way, did the update create a

C:\Windows.old

folder? This folder may be created during Windows 10 refreshes/resets, but perhaps also during a major update??

Assuming you do not have that folder:

This is the next thing I suggest:

Finding/Using Shadow Copies

You can use a utility program to search inside restore points to try to locate an old file that's usable. (Please do NOT try to use the built-in Windows System Restore for this because you probably would lose data.) Here are the steps:

(1) Set Windows to show hidden files and folders:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14201/windows-show-hidden-files

(2) Download and run one of these two programs:

• ShadowExplorer: http://www.shadowexplorer.com/
• System Restore Explorer: http://nicbedford.co.uk/software/systemrestoreexplorer/

Within the most recent restore point shown in the program, you can explore along this path to see whether you can find a shadow copy of your profile:

\Users\your-user-name\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

(3) Check in the bookmarkbackups folder of each profile for older backups. You can export interesting files to a convenient location such as your currently live desktop.

If you find a promising candidate, check out this article: Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer -- you'll use the Choose File option at the bottom of the Restore menu to grab the file you exported.

Any luck?

There was only one other profile other than the default one. Thanks for your help but I think I got my bookmarks back. I had forgotten that Microsoft had created a new profile on my PC when they were fixing other problems and when I switched back to the old profile and re-started the PC the bookmarks now appear. BTW there was a C:Windows.old file on the hard drive. Thanks for your time and effort on this.

Okay! (I do always suggest doing a Windows shut down and restart as the first step, but I didn't think of suggesting to log in as a different person at that point.)

Thanks again. I did originally do the Windows shut down and restart but forgot to check the original profile.