If you search the external hard drive, can you find a folder named bookmarkbackups?

If Firefox was installed under your Windows user profile folder, that may be a hidden directory. Either manually include hidden files and folders in your search, or make them visible as described in this article: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hidden-files (I assume this would be through the Desktop on Windows 8).

Assuming you find that folder, check out this article. You would use Choose Files to navigate the Restore dialog over to your external drive, or you could copy the bookmarkbackups folder to a convenient location on the C drive.

Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer

Any luck?

If your Firefox data wasn't on the external drive but on the formatted drive, check for the following directory to dig up your old Firefox data:

C:\Windows.old

It is on external drive-tried your suggestion but no success.Thank You.

Found file OK but it will not open-will not do anything in fact.I think I will resurrect my old pc and burn a disc ans re-install---Thank You

Hi Guideppe, a .json file is a formatted data file that you do not want to try to execute or edit. However, following the Restore process in the article I linked above, Firefox should be able to extract and restore your bookmarks from that file. If you already tried that, did you get a specific error message?

Did not get an error message but dates to select only went back about 3 days.Thanks anyway.

On that menu, Firefox only lists backups in the current settings folder. To open a backup from a different folder, try the "Choose File..." option at the bottom of the menu and then open it from wherever it is (either a convenient location such as Desktop or Documents were you copied it, or on your external media).

Problem corrected thanks to your expertise!Thank You very much!!