Glad you recovered your eDGe. Sorry about the data loss. The procedure you followed was for a complete OS restore. The link I provided was an example of a owner who was having problems with their eDGe and an OS update (not a complete restore) fixed it. An OS update will not cause data loss. You should have tried the OS update first and if it didn't work proceeded with a complete OS restore.
You can backup your Library using the local backup option on the eDGe.
Here's also something that may help you later on:
http://www.metago.net/astro-backup.php
http://www.1mobile.com/astro-file-ma...ser-80689.html