Hi

If Firefox starts up without your bookmarks, passwords, saved tabs and other settings, check whether your data is available in a different profile.

Read Recover user data missing after Firefox update or reinstall

thank you for responding. i'm 77 and not very competent and am still having problems. i went to profiles and found the one i need and somehow i got it opened, but i can't figure out how to make it stay on my desktop. can you walk me through the process? anyway, like i said, thank you very much. i was afraid i had lost all. much relieved that's not so. thanks.

gardoskijoe, did you try the "Set as default profile" suggestion here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1569961#answer-1804609 (sorry if you have already seen and tried it)