wierd files missing problem

I recently deployed an ipcop(running spam filtering, proxying etc) box to a client, yesterday, it failed to start after a power cut, and refused to get past the grub terminal screen. ambient temperature in the rack it was in was around 50-60 degrees (celsius!), so I suspected hard drive failure. I booted from a knoppix boot disk, and ran a few hardware tests, it passed all of them, and I could read the directory structure fine.
the wierd thing I couldn't actually find any files in any directory on the hard drive..
I'd like to avoid re-installing the box, as there were quite a few custom scripts that I had spent a fair bit of time on.

any ideas?

x-posted to ipcop