Life Drive loses Life Balance Data but no reset- anybody seen this?

I just had a most disconcerting experience. I turned on my Life Drive, got an error message about a memory error in Life Balance which disappeared very quickly, and was confronted with an absolutely empty outline. The machine was functioning, no soft or hard reset, but the outline was gone. My places were still there, but I believe they are a separate file.
I was only 20 feet from my laptop, and I didn't lose much. I wish I had been able to capture the precise error message, but I could not.

I know the Life Drive is not very stable, as Palms go, and I have seen error messages followed by soft resets. But this is the first time I have seen a memory-related error message without a reset, but total data loss. I hope it doesn't happen again. Has anyone else seen anything like this?

Thanks,
Mike