Rebooting while photos in print queue

[Tom Bell]

I had some photographs I was printing from GIMP using GutenPrint and had
them minimized.  When an update ended I completely  forgot about the
printing in progress and selected "restart".  When I was back up, I had
lost all USB except for my keyboard (DAS) and my Logitech wireless USB
mouse.  I also could not get online.
I ended up using the live CD of Gutsy Gibbon Kubuntu 7.10, AMD64 and
found that I could get online and access my USB products.   I eventually
reloaded the OS and got everything back.
Why is there no way to test the integrity  of parts of the system and
allow recovery of the damaged/altered files???
Thank you!