Files/Folders disappearing and changes made in ACR not being saved

Okay, long winded post coming up. I am a wedding photographer and my usual workflow has been... okay. I'm sure I could do things to save time, but this is what I was taught and teaching an old dog new tricks seems daunting. BUT I have run into an issue and my entire process is on hold.

Here is what I currently have been doing: created a folder on my external hard drive for the session/wedding, create 3 sub folders (RAWS, sneak peeks, finals), pop card in, open bridge, select all of the RAW files from card, drag and drop into "raws" subfolder on hard drive, then open the "raw" folder in bridge, cull and apply star ratings to the images I want to keep, open starred raw files in ACR, edit in chronological order, export image as jpg into appropriate folder on hard drive OR open images in photoshop if I want to fine tune or remove clutter etc.

This process has worked fine and I have been able to close ACR/Bridge and go back to the images with my star-ratings saved (5 star to keep, 4 star to edit in Photoshop etc) as well as the edits saved.

BUT I did the newest update and noticed that an entire wedding has deleted from my hard drive. The main folder is there, but the sub folders for the raws, finals, and sneaks have disappeared. I culled the entire wedding and everything is gone. I re-did it, and the same thing happened. I uploaded another session the day after that and no issues... I also uploaded another wedding that same day and no issues. I thought the folder itself was the problem so I created a second folder with new subfolders, re-imported the RAWS from my second backup card, starred and edited half of the images and realized the SECOND half of the RAW files disappeared (from reception onward), and non of my star ratings, or edits saved.

I am baffled. Normally an xmp is generated in the raw sub folder for the images I star and edit, but nothing is there. And the second half of files I imported no longer exist. I cannot for the life of me figure out why these files are spontaneously disappearing. I see them, I can open them and edit them, I can export them as jpg's, but when I close ACR - poof. Gone. Like, even off the hard drive. 

hallllp!