Ran Backup - Now All IE Favorites Lost?

I just completed running a full backup of my PC onto an external drive using Windows Backup.When I went into IE (I'm running IE8 on Windows 7) all my dozens of favourites had vanished!I only have one used account on the PC as only I use it, so I an not in another account.I tried restoring favourites from the backup - the process tells me the files are already there, do I want to overwrite them - so I said yes, but they are still not visible in IE (I only get "Add to favourites", "Organise favourites" options when I click on the favourites tab).I tried doing a system restore, to a point before the backup, but that has made no difference.Obviously the favourites are there somewhere, as they are in the backup, but how on earth do I get them back into my Browser where I can use them?? (Come to that, how on earth can doing a backup have caused them to vanish??)

PS - I've just checked in Windows Explorer - in Users> Helen > Favorites they are all there, all 700 files in 64 folders - so why are they not showing in Internet Explorer where they should be?