I wish the autosave worked more consitantly… I lost about 4 or 5 hours work from yesterday. I finally had a head that did not look “alien” was redering a full animation when I went to bed and for some reason the computer froze.
I went looking for the #.blend with the head. Looked at each of them and can not find the one with the head. 
Thats why you need to get in the habbit of saving every few minutes. Its not that difficult. Just Ctrl+S and Enter.
-Laurifer
lol. I am kicking my own butt for not doing that. This is the first time my computer has frozen like that in about a year. I have let several old habits die. Time to resusitate them.
I save with sequential file names and make backups onto JumpDrives.
I know what you mean. It’s happened a couple times to me, too. More than once on a school project due the next day. :x
Thats another good idea. When I’m about to make some major change to a scene I will do a Save As and make a new file, so I can always go back if I need to.
-Laurifer
Have you checked the modified dates / times of the #.blend files? I can usually find one that’s less than ½ hr old.