Sudden loss of data - how do I find out what happened

Sudden loss of data - how do I find out what happened?

I came back from work today to find my computer (macbook pro running latest version of Snow Leopard) behaving strangely: windows wouldn't close, the dock wouldn't appear, and the cursor was not tracking smoothly. I decided to force-quit all applications and restart the computer. Following this restart I was dismayed to find a number of recent files had vanished, on closer inspection anything created after the 14th of August had gone (I'm writing this on the 24th of August). More troubling is the fact that this crash appears to have wiped both my duplicate back-up, and my versioned back-up, both of which are stored on a separate hard disk that is permanently connected to my computer. I don't expect to be able to recover this data, but I would like to have a go at finding out what happened. Does anyone have any ideas? Are there any tests/unix commands I can run on my computer which might shed some light on this mystery?

Thanks,

Paul.

Is it possible that your home had a power surge or line hit while you were gone? I find it difficult to imagine what could have wiped out your backups on separate external hard drives?

I know many folks leave their computers running 24/7 and never shut down, however, I always advise folks to take note of weather conditions or if your power is prone to brown outs or hits.

hi chscag,

You were right to be skeptical about the possibility of an event wiping out data on my external hard-drive.

Shortly after posting here, it suddenly occurred to me that the 14 of August was the day of my last hard-drive back-up. I then realized what had happened. On completion of a back-up, by default, my back-up software (Super-Duper) reboots into the duplicate to allow me to check that everything is as it should be. On the 14th I postponed this reboot, and asked it to boot into the duplicate next time I restarted my computer - this happened to be yesterday. Hence, as I was panicking that my back-up was gone, I was in fact staring it in the face! After restarting the computer, I booted into my macbook's own hard-drive and everything was fine again.

Sorry for wasting your time.

Paul.

Not a problem. Glad to hear that everything worked out OK.