cgsecurity.org

Ok as I posted here the other day I had a partition that has disappeared. I asked for help here but before anyone responded or my post even made it here I figured it out. Let me just say that it is fantastic that TestDisk works so good but I want to know why I had the problem in the first place. is there anyway of diagnosing the cause. I am wondering if it is possible that VirtualBox could cause this. It is mapped to that section of my HD. I did not notice exactly when the partition disappeared but VB had hung recently on close.
Any ideas or instructions would be greatly appreciated.
One more question. Where is the partition table information stored. Could I have saved myself all this trouble and rebooted into Acronis True Image and gone back to an earlier time?