Lost favourites in IE

[John Carlson]

Dear list
Since about the 1/4 I have lost all of my favourites, even Hotbar, in IE5.
Even the ones I put back in disappear if I restart my Imac333. Could not
download Virex 6 update as it would keep having an error. Eventually
downloaded it through a thumb drive but the update did not find any viruses
or trojans. Anybody got any ideas please?
John C