Despite saving multiple times throughout the day, the file never actually changed

I've tried looking for a duplicate file and it does not exist. I've been working on an image throughout the day, off and on since this morning. The file was saved multiple times since then, and re-opened a bunch of times where I left off. My windows explorer seizes up, restarts, and I save the image and close Photoshop to help it calm down. I re-open Photoshop, re-open that file, and it was as if I never touched it since this morning. I've checked in multiple places, and there is absolutely no duplicate file. Or a file with (insert file name here)-Recovered.psd. I have opened all the .psd files in the same folder to make sure I didnt accidentally overwrite another older image I hadnt been working on, and nothing. Did the file search and came up with nothing. I tried to 'save-as' to see where the file might have saved to, and it's the same folder where I'd been saving it all day. I will continue to scour my file system to see if it either was renamed or relocated anywhere by accident, but for now I'd love to have an answer other than 'sorry you're SOL, it reverted to itself to when you opened it 9 hours ago.'

I also noticed upon reopening the file, that it was nowhere in the 'recent files' preview window, despite having saved and closed, when I opened up Photoshop. That isn't the first occurrence of it happening, so I ignored it.