Today after updating an xml file on my magento installation, I performed a routine cache flush in the backend of magento. More specifically, I pressed the two buttons "Flush Magento Cache" and "Flush Cache Storage". To my chagrine, upon reloading my magento site, the top nav bar had disappeared, and all links to products had broken. As a first time Magento user, I feel rather underequipped to deal with this issue.
This problem has happened to me once before, shortly after the initial installation. Reinstalling the theme fixed it. Difference now is I've added a ton of products and other db changes, and don't have the db or files backed up. I'm afraid of reinstalling the theme in case I lose all the work I've done to the database and front end. Has anyone run into this before, and/or can anyone shed some light on what's going on and possible fixes? Please help!