Lost recordings after exporting to WAV format

[allnjms]

Hello I have been recording sermons at my church for a few months and have finally got to grips with everything when I have noticed now that there is a problem with the recordings.
when I record, it works fine then I export it as a WAV file and close down audacity not saving the changes.
When I try to playback the recording using any other software, eg windows media player, it only plays the first 3 minutes then goes silent for the rest of the recording.
When I open it in audacity again, either file->open or file->import, the full length file opens but on the wave bar thing (lol) the waves are uping and downing for the first 3 minutes then go straight to the bottom and flatline all the way to the end.
If I come out of audacity then and look at the file in My Computer folder it has a padlock symbol on the icon.
First of all why is this happening and secondly can these files be recovered.
Many thanks

[steve]

How much free disk space is there on the computer?
Are you doing any editing before you export?
How long are the recordings (before editing)?

[kozikowski]

Next time you do this, Save a Project and export a WAV. As it sits now, having a damaged WAV file means that's the end of the story. There's no way to back up to an earlier version.

Sudden Computer Insanity is frequently caused by the computer filling up. Less likely is fragmentation, but you can check both.

Defrag
-- Right Click Start > Explore > Right Click Local Drive C: > Properties (Used, Remaining)
-- Tools > Error Checking & Defragmentation

Hour long performances are large digital files. You should have at least 15% or so free drive space after you record your show.

Koz

[allnjms]

Apologies for late reply guys,
This does make sense, I will go down the church now and have a look, an error message came up on pc saying increase backup space from 2-4 gb.
It looks like I might need a new HDD. WIll check defrag as well.
Will let you know after. Many thanks.
J

[allnjms]

Next time you do this, Save a Project and export a WAV. As it sits now, having a damaged WAV file means that's the end of the story. There's no way to back up to an earlier version.

Sudden Computer Insanity is frequently caused by the computer filling up. Less likely is fragmentation, but you can check both.

Defrag
-- Right Click Start > Explore > Right Click Local Drive C: > Properties (Used, Remaining)
-- Tools > Error Checking & Defragmentation

Hour long performances are large digital files. You should have at least 15% or so free drive space after you record your show.

Koz

I tried all this and everything was fine, there is over 300gb left on hdd and disk was 0% fragmented.

[steve]

How long are the recordings (before editing)?