I had a terrible experience yesterday:

 

my entire skin folder which i use for IL2 A/C has gone.

Sub folders files everything, nothing in the dustbin, nothing found through recovery apps, just gone as if it never existed.

 

My only luck is that I posted 2 days earlier some skins on Mediafire.

But the last ones I worked on are gone, I have to start all over again (her should be an emoticon crying out it's eyeballs)

And bought a bigger and faster external HD for a more regular back-up.

 

I had  some *.dds files for testing but they are not completely what I wanted.

I think the new update to the game really took a toll on some folks. I believe most had to rebind their controls and redo their settings, so I imagine it had to do with the update.

Because of stick ID change?  I haven't actually tried anything yet....but I did start up the game and went into the settings > key mapping for a different reason.  I didn't get that usual message that says it found new devices and asks if you want to transfer the functions assigned to the "old" devices to the "new" ones....so I assumed all was normal.

Searched for possible reasons at Microsoft. Came down to "S*t happens, make more and often back ups to prevent loss of data."

Okay, thx for the advice. 

Never happened before in all my years with a computer (1986 probably an Olivetti M240).