Help - Lost second drive and files all moved back to April

[$Bill]

Reboot occurred (not sure if it was a crash or normal shutdown after update),
but on coming back up everything started turning to crap. Got a strange
screen (possibly due to Samsung MagicTune install) and heavy/solid IDE led
indicating either a lockup or extremely heavy IDE use. Decided to reset.
After reset, got a strange login but got in and before long did another
shutdown. After a better looking login screen, logged in and found all my
files post April 2008 were gone or reverted back to a version on or before
that date. In addition, my second drive (SATA) has disappeared (checked
disk management and no drive there either).

I'm pretty sure of a couple of things:

1) The SATA drive has either been corrupted and lost it's partition info or
the drive is physically fried and not showing up to the OS (I have to
still shutdown and check if the drive is running and try switching cables
to see if it's a connection issue and make sure BIOS doesn't see it either
before I break down and send it in for replacement/possible recovery).

2) Somehow, the OS has reverted my files back to April (I don't have backup
turned on). I've restored my working files (stuff I work on) to Oct 15
OK, but haven't attempted any other files (like applications and doc/settings
tree, OS, etc.

My questions are :
1) What reverted my files back ?
2) What should I do to get me back to where I was before the incident ?
Like troubleshooting the drive loss and getting my files back.

OS: XP Pro SP3

TIA, Bill

 

[$Bill]

Reboot occurred (not sure if it was a crash or normal shutdown after
update),
but on coming back up everything started turning to crap. Got a strange
screen (possibly due to Samsung MagicTune install) and heavy/solid IDE led
indicating either a lockup or extremely heavy IDE use. Decided to reset.
After reset, got a strange login but got in and before long did another
shutdown. After a better looking login screen, logged in and found all my
files post April 2008 were gone or reverted back to a version on or before
that date. In addition, my second drive (SATA) has disappeared (checked
disk management and no drive there either).

Update: The second drive it turns out is now the first drive and it's
really the first drive that's gone (the IDE drive). This is really
strange since my MB can't boot from the SATA drive. But at least it
explains how the files got reverted (I copied the 1st drive to the 2nd
drive when I added it).

So know if have to figure out:
1) What happened to my IDE drive ? and
2) How the hell did it manage to boot my SATA drive ?
3) How do I fix it all ?

 

[PanHandler]

Update: The second drive it turns out is now the first drive and it's
really the first drive that's gone (the IDE drive). This is really
strange since my MB can't boot from the SATA drive. But at least it
explains how the files got reverted (I copied the 1st drive to the 2nd
drive when I added it).

So know if have to figure out:
1) What happened to my IDE drive ? and
2) How the hell did it manage to boot my SATA drive ?
3) How do I fix it all ?

Bill,
It's been my understanding that some Mobos/BIOS's have issues (sometimes
random) regarding having SATA and IDE drives running at the same time. You
might try Googling the subject.
Joe Arnold