HELP!!! Lost data

[baf11]

Help!

I had been using GnuCash for over a year and have been very happy.
However, when I loaded the application today I noticed that all
transactions between 5/24/2004 and today have been erased from my data.
I haven't recently changed anything in GnuCash, haven't upgraded the
software, nothing.  

The only things I can think of that might be related are that I made a
copy of the GnuCash data for archival purposes, but that should have
been read only.  Also I've had some recent power outages, but GnuCash
probably wasn't loaded in memory.  This is GnuCash 1.8.9 on Gentoo.

Is all that data lost?  There's no way I could type it all in again,
much less find it.  How in the world could so much data disappear???  I
have a directory with the following files in my data directory:
$ find GnuCash
GnuCash
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20041229094712.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040524203836.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050108102315.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050108102605.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040510220748.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050121210043.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040523214850.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040523220845.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050105191740.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040510213646.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20041229100404.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20041229101719.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20041229101508.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040426231256.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050105180835.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040510211311.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050111185106.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040510214411.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050105180826.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050121205928.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050105175947.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050111185432.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050120212953.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050109111607.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050108105054.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050120214444.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050108102256.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050108105459.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050108103955.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040510220746.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050108105018.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050108103819.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050109114549.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050121204914.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040523212611.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20041229101137.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20041229094857.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050118081711.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040523220000.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040524202636.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040426225516.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050118084838.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040523215240.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040510213859.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050108103935.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040510220626.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050121204223.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040510214913.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040426225654.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050121205723.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050121203756.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040524204002.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050109115433.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050108103724.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050108231648.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050120214203.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040523220003.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040510213933.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20041229101641.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050121204205.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050105190541.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050105185533.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050118084111.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040426220310.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20040523222123.xac
GnuCash/GnuCash_data.20050124080917.log
GnuCash/GnuCash_data_before_purge

You can see that one of the log files is marked 5/24/2004, which is VERY
suspicious to me.  Is there a way that some pointer to future logs could
have gotten borked during a power failure?  Is there a way to fix this
or reapply the logs, like a transactional database?

I have one VERY critical piece of information contained in GnuCash (the
$$$ my roommate owes me) which I need to retrieve.  Everything else is
important to retrieve, though not as critical. 

Also, I sent this message originally two days ago when I wasn't
subscribed to this list.  As a result, my post never actually made it
through the approval queue.  I'm not sure what the delay time should be,
but perhaps the latency fact should be mentioned at 
  https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
This page doesn't mention that messages sent from unsubscribed addresses
will pend indefinetly in the waiting queue.  Since my problem is quite
critical, I would have liked to have known this information sooner.

Thanks for any help.  Please CC me on any replies as I'm now subscribed
in digest mode.

brian