ZWER:

I feel your pain. I toyed with Visual Studio and something similar happened to me.

When I tried to save my work one of the files just "disappeared" - No idea where it went!

I am usually meticulous saving my files (I used SourceSafe many, many years ago!) but took it for granted the IDE would save reliably.
Stupid me!

Anyway, I think the .net platform is interesting in itself but I find the IDE a bit heavyweight. I've used others (Eclipse, Netbeans, monodevelop) but I just think Visual Studio is bit bloated (like a fat-man trying to dance like a ballerina).

Maybe have a look at mono .