File does not exist -> no thumbnail

Hi! 
Yesterday, I was working on a file (illustrator) I later saved on a (removable) drive. The drive was not disconnected from the computer at any point. In addition, It was not the first time that I saved this file, I have worked on it for a while and used to just overwrite it. 

Today, when I wanted to open the same file again - I could not see it in its location. 

In Adobe Illustrator I don't see it in the "recent" tab, however, if I go to File -> Open Recent Files it is there. But if I click on it, it says that "File does not exist".

I have tried the solutions proposed in similar discussions
1. I restarted my PC and illustrator

2. I performed a global search for the file

3. I checked the autosave folder
4. I checked the bin

5. I have checked different files with yesterday's date just in case I have overwritten them 

None of these solutions seemed to work.

Do you guys have any other ideas on what I could do? I really do not want to start over... 

Thanks a lot!

J