I seem to have lost my favorites list on my computer. How do I get it back?

If you’re using Windows 7 or Vista, look in the users directory (or Documents and Settings in XP, I think). See if you have two directories with your laptop login name, one with just your login name and one with your login name, a dot, and some sort of thing after the dot.

If you do, then your favorites (I assume your using Internet Explorer) can probably be saved.

In Windows 7 and Vista your favorites will be saved as a folder named Favorites in:
C:\Users\[your login name]\Favorites. You’d copy it from the older directory (probably without the .whatever) into the same place in the new directory.

If this is the case then finding out why Windows created a new profile for you would be the next thing to figure out.

If you’re not using any Windows at all then I probably can’t help.

You have probably tried this, but just in case, does rebooting fix it?

If yes, no need to read on.

My XP laptop sometimes does this and, as @mrentropy describes, a whole new directory is created with a My Documents, Favorites, etc.

The first one is the “real” one, the second is the empty one.
C:\Documents and Settings\jaytkay
C:\Documents and Settings\jaytkay.LJLJ45

Hope you get them back intact!

Are you using Firefox? Ignore this answer if you aren’t, but I did occasionally get this when I was using Firefox and followed this guide thoroughly. It looks a little overwhelming…I suggest you skip down to the ‘Restoring bookmarks from backup’ section.