IMovie - corruption with external disk

I used a Canon HD30. I plugged firewire from the camera to the G5, put the tape in the video camera, launched iMovie, created a new project and selected the external hard drive as always so the hard drive doesn't run out of space.
I movie recognized immediately the HD30 and from iMovie, I clicked import. All the clips were imported as normal. Then I saved the project and closed the iMovie.
The problem is that the external drive is now blank like if it was formatted and I even don't have the project saved anywhere.
Does someone know what could have happened and most of all, if there something I could do to recover the data that was on the external drive?
I tried to plug the external drive on different machines even a windows to see if I could see some files on the external disk.
I also tried a software called Data Rescue but the software cannot read the external drive.
Hope you have a re comforting solution for me.
Thanks
R

I don't know if you know all about using external discs with Macs (..or with any kind of computer..) ..meaning that you mustn't unplug them from the Mac until you've removed the disc's little identifying icon from your Desktop, by dragging the icon to the Trash, or by Ctrl-clicking on the icon and then choosing 'Eject..'
If you just unplug an external disc, it might not have fully written its 'Directory' (..the list of files stored on the disc..) ..and you risk completely corrupting the Directory if the disc is just disconnected without having 'Ejected' it from your Desktop.
If you did 'Eject' it first, that's fine. If you didn't, then the Directory may be corrupt. If that's the case, your Mac might not be able to find anything that's on the disc.
A program called 'Disk Warrior' may be able to rebuild the Directory and retrieve your data. It's important that you get the appropriate version of DW to match your version of the OS X operating system ..in your case, version 10.5.4, I think you've put at the bottom of your posts.
Here are some instructions about using DW. It can be bought via Amazon.
I think that 'Data Rescue' works more on individual files, rather than rebuilding a corrupted Directory. Data Rescue's web page says "..What if the drive doesn't show up in Disk Utility?
If the drive is not recognized in Disk Utility, then Data Rescue II will not be able to see it either.." ..maybe that's why DR "..didn't even scan the disk.."
If you attach the external disc, click on the apple symbol at top-left of your screen, choose 'About This Mac' and then click the 'More Info..' button, then System Profiler should show you details of your Mac. Choose 'FireWire' from the left-hand column and it should give you details of your external disc. If NO details show up there, then DR ..and probably DW.. won't be able to read the external disc.
However, you said "..I have created a test file using TextEdit and it save he file with no problems.." so your external disc should be readable. So I guess the problems have come about because the disc was FAT 32 formatted, and "meta-data" has been lost, but most of the data should still be ther - as long as you didn't unplug the disc before 'Ejecting' it.
I'll post back again later, when I've done some tests here.. meanwhile maybe others will make a few suggestions..
P.S: ..You connected your Canon camcorder and the FireWire external disc at the same time, and imported from the camcorder ..that's unusual, as Canons usually like to be the sole device on a FireWire circuit. If your disc is connected via USB, instead of by FireWire, then you'd obviously look under 'USB' in the left-hand column of System Profiler.

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