Are you sure you lost data when you activated the module again? I got this scary message also when deactivating the FAQ module, but the content whas again there when reactivating it.
One module I saw the problem recently is taxonomy_html where the blocks are reset to their default values and have thus no more region assigned. Also any php visibility code you added is lost which is the most annoying. Its a module which is a bit abandoned (last update 2007) and which I use on an older site.
I saw the same reset of blocks to default also with the tagadelic module, but that seemed to be solved in the latest version of the module.
Hans
On 8/31/08, Neil: esl-lounge.com neil@esl-lounge.com wrote:
I remember we discussed this on the mailing list a few months back and I just had a clear example of it, thankfully on a test site.
I de-selected the Audio module (remember, as we are advised to do when doing a major drupal version upgrade) and I saw the message:
"The content fields table content_type_audio has been deleted."
so this seems proof positive that following the official advise to deselect modules can harm your site and lose you data.
Neil