Spotlight has stopped working in finder!!!!

I'm having a major Spotlight problem. This morning I tried to perform a search in the finder but no results came up, so I tried another one. Again nothing. So I checked my smart folders, all empty. This despite the fact spotlight is working fine everywhere else. The top right hand corner, mail, everywhere.
I made a phone call to apple technical support but they hand no clue what was causing it and recommended I reinstall OS X. This seems a tad extreme to me so I though I would check here if anyone has any advice before I take this pretty major step.
Can anyone help?

Overhaze,
This is indeed an extreme solution and probably a nightmare you could do without. It is not the first time I've seen this suggested, in these forums, as a desperate measure. One should NEVER have to reinstall the entire system for something as small as not being able to find a file.
But that's Spotlight for you.
And anyway, there is no guarantee that by reinstalling your entire OS (with everything that entails) that Spotlight would still not let you down.
All I can suggest is - abandon Spotlight as your way of finding files, and keep visiting these forums until you find some better suggestion.
Instead of spotlight there is Easyfind, which is reliable. You can download it for free at the following link.
http://www.devon-technologies.com/download/index.html

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