The first thing to do is to locate your profile folder/directory, that is easiest to do if firefox itself is open! Then copy the whole lot somewhere safe such as onto your windows desktop. This step is not entirely necessary but a belts and braces procedure, because presumably you have no other backups of your bookmarks and so it seems a prudent precautionary step.

For informatiom the bookmarks themselves are stored multiple times. The main and most important is a file called places.sqlite there will also be a folder of backups with the extension .json.

Normally Firefox will retain bookmarks and other data when reinstalling, as long as you do NOT use the option to delete data (however that is worded). The location of the profile folder is likely to be something like C:\Documents and Settings\[name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles Copy the whole lot from where it says Mozilla that should include the bookmark backups folder.

Now you can go ahead and do a clean reinstall of firefox. Noting that these files are in a totaly different file path from the profile. typically C:\Programs

1. download a new version of firefox from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html
   this will be firefox 5 not firefox 4 that is ok
   (discussion)
2. save the file where you can find it such as on the desktop
3. uninstall firefox using XP control panel option ( do NOT remove personal data)
4. to ensure this is a clean install remove the firefox folder if it remains in your programs directory (do not confuse with the profile mentioned already)
5. run the install file for firefox 5 that you have saved already

This should result in a clean reinstall of firefox 5, which should have your bookmarks and any other settings. In future remember to make backups of bookmarks. (The profile folders/files saved initially should not be required). If you had backup bookmarks, simply creating another profile may have worked to fix this problem.

For further information see also

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_%28Firefox%29#Clean_reinstall

Post again if you have problems or with how you get on.

i couldn't wait for an answer so took a risk. i uninstalled firefox using uninstall icon in firefox folder, installed new version and fortunately my bookmarks weren't deleted.. first thing i did was to backup my bookmarks. But thanx anyway..

Glad you solved the problem.

Bookmarks are often important to users, but something that may get neglected when documents and data are backed up. Firefox does try not to loose them, but it can be relatively easy to inadvertently overwrite them, or otherwise loose the profile they are in.

I was rather surprised for instance as that the remove data option on uninstalling is likely to remove all profiles and bookmarks from all versions of firefox, but I have seen a few computer disasters and tend to backup everything, including having a tested bare metal recovery strategy.