To be fair: I can not blame the N900 for any true failure. Maybe it was a bit immature when it was released. I am now using it way more than a year oftentimes 2 or 3 hours a day incl. Citrix under Easy Debian etc.

And I poked allot around with it - only semi competent (if at all). The kids are tossing it around and do many thinks I later do not really understand. And I never lost anything - until Tuesday.

My old iMac was much wore in that respect (terribly unreliable) and any Windows machine I owned or used is the same. Compared to Apple or Microsoft, the N900 is really reliable (that is why I did so little backups :-( )

This makes me think of what I expect from a pocket device (not calling it a phone): I enjoy the freedom to play around on every level and I am willing to take the risk to thereby brake something. I see the drawback (some inconsistency included) but prefer it over a closed device like otherwise elegant iPhone.

To continue off topic: that is the reason I put some hopes on Meego.

Back to the topic: I run Testdisk as described and learned that the disk is to small because it is smaller than some 35000000 TB. And some of the Linux partitions can not be recovered. I assume that the relates to now disfunctional Easy Debian, which is not a problem.

I will now try some forensic tool and will report.