One of my partitions went cranky ... the file tables went crazy .. directories became inaccessible, or simply disappeared!! *poof*
Now I must really recommend a great program ... GetDataBack by Runtime Software ... It has saved my files more than once, really good stuff ... if your drives ever die on you, turn to GetDataBack. Of course, if it's a physical crash, then hard luck .... that happened to me twice, so I know how lousy it feels ... now I'm always contemplating setting up a RAID ... hmmm... hmm...