The lost bookmarks article should help you recover them.

Hello Tony,

Many thanks for replying so quickly. lost bookmarks article prior to asking the question but after your reply I tried again - but with no success.

What happens is that I go into the Bookmarks toolbar, organise bookmarks and then click on the symbol at the right side - and I have the options BACK UP, RESTORE, IMPORT HTML AND IMPORT HTML.

In the article under point 3 below it says that there should be an option called import and backup but I don't have that option so I can't access previously stored bookmark backups to select one to restore, if you see what I mean. I can't see a list of restored backups by date and definitely can't select the most recent one prior to updating to the new version of Firefox.

Could you possibly advise what I can do. I have got some very old bookmarks from when I used Safari and could possibly import them to Firefox but I have added a lot since and also spent time organing them into folders in Firefox.

I hate computers when they go wrong.

It would be wonderful if you could help me to find my bookmarks.

Many thanks.

Tracey

Restoring bookmark backups

The file where your bookmarks are stored can become corrupted or other problems can occur, causing some or all of your bookmarks to be unavailable in Firefox. If you lost your bookmarks within the last five days, you can restore them from the set of backups that Firefox maintains.

  1. From the menu at the top of the Firefox windowbar, click the Bookmarks menu and choose Organize Bookmarks… to open the Library window.
  2. Before proceeding, you should make a backup of your current bookmarks.
        1. From the toolbar on the Library window, select Import and Backup and choose Backup…
        2. Firefox will ask you to save the bookmark backup to a folder on your hard drive. Choose a location that you will remember.
        3. Your current bookmarks have been backed up to the file you selected. 
  3. From the toolbar on the Library window, select Import and Backup to open the Import and Backup menu, and pick Restore… to see a list of available bookmark backups organized by date.
  4. To restore one of the listed backups, select it from the Restore… menu. Choose the newest bookmark backup that was created before the bookmarks were lost. You will lose all changes to your bookmarks that occurred after the date you select.
         * Note: To restore a backup that you saved manually, select Choose File… from the Restore menu instead of selecting an automatic backup 
  5. A confirmation window will appear asking you to confirm replacing your bookmarks with the backup. To replace the bookmarks, press OK. To go back, press Cancel.
     You cannot undo this unless you saved a backup file as instructed above.
  6. Your bookmarks have been restored to the date you selected. If your bookmarks do not show up after completing the restore process, repeat the above steps to restore an earlier backup.

See also http://kb.mozillazine.org/Locked_or_damaged_places.sqlite