Hi Dawn, what do you mean by a "system reset"? Windows can roll back recent changes using System Restore, or it can make more drastic changes. Could you explain in more detail what happened? Was it one of the things described in this article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17101/windows-7-system-recovery-options

On newer versions of Windows, a "reset" may create a folder called

C:\Windows.old\

which retains a copy of your old user folder that should contain your Firefox profile.

To explore that copy of the old user folder, you need to turn on viewing of hidden files and folders: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hidden-files

Then look for

C:\Windows.old\Users\your-user-name\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

However, I don't know whether Windows 7 did that or whether it expected you to back up your data first...

I have already looked into my Firefox profiles and the only profile listed is today's date. I never did a system restore nor do I want to, I was making a couple changes to my network settings, that shouldnt have deleted my bookmarks. Can you help me?

There aren't very many places to look for your Firefox data.

• One is the current Profiles folder. It sounds as though you only have one in the standard location. If you dig into the bookmarkbackups folder, are there older files there? If so, please review the following article: Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer.

• Another would be an Old Firefox Data folder on the Windows desktop, if Firefox performed a Refresh. Do you see anything like that? If you do, does it contain freshly updated files? We can describe how to recovery data from that folder if it's relevant.

• A third would be a different user folder on the system, if the changes somehow created a new user. If you check C:\Users do you see any others that could be relevant?

Note: Sometimes after system updates, Windows starts up in a state that Firefox does not have full permissions to its settings files, with odd and unpredictable results. Usually shutting down Windows and starting it back up again will resolve that issue.

I have gone through and checked all other users on the computer c drive they only have very old bookmarks, nothing recent.

There is an Old Firefox Data folder on the Windows desktop. Yes it does contain freshly updated files? Can you please describe how to recovery data from that folder?

Hi Dawn, if you drill down into the Old Firefox Data folder to the bookmarkbackups folder, you should find one or more files whose names follow this pattern (where 9876 is the number of bookmarks in the file):

bookmarks-2016-12-21_9876_gibberish==.jsonlz4

You can restore one of those files to your currently running Firefox using the steps in the following article. When you get to the Restore menu -- "Choose File" should appear at the bottom -- click that and point Firefox to the backup in Old Firefox Data instead of in your current profile.

Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer

You can copy files like these to the current Firefox profile folder to recover specific data.

• bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
• bookmark backups: JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
• SQLite files like cookies.sqlite (cookies) and formhistory.sqlite (saved form data)
• logins.json and key3.db (decryption key) for Passwords saved in the Password Manager
• cert8.db and possibly cert_override.txt for (intermediate) certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
• persdict.dat for words you added to the spelling checker dictionary
• permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other Site Preferences
• sessionstore.js for open tabs and pinned tabs and tab groups

See also:

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder:

• Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Directory:
  Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox