Renamed a folder, now 90% of it's content are GONE! Please help!

[draperdrums]

As the title says, just earlier today I changed a file from 'August Projects' to 'September Projects'.
A few hours later I went into the folder to arrange files and I noticed that instead of 40 or so file folders, there were only 6!!
What the hell? What could have happened here?

(I'm a musician/producer)
This is the most current/important things I have been working on, and it is imperative to recover these some how. I do not believe they are completely gone, just 'hidden'.


Please and thank you so much for any help- these files are a big part of the life I'm trying to create. I was JUST about to back everything up together on an external hard drive..

 

[Kaveman]

Try looking for them with Spotlight, could be a sign the Hard Drive is failing.

 

[draperdrums]

I believe the Hard Drive was just replaced under applecare, while they were searching for a different problem.
I will do the spotlight search, though. I'll post once I get that done