Footage has magically vanished from tape

[lmw]

I filmed about 10 minutes on a fresh new tape today on my hv30. The last couple of minutes have completely vanished from the tape, nowhere to be found. When I went to playback the screen is just blue and the timecode is fine. I am 100% positive I pressed record, as I was filming snowboarding tricks off and on and theres no way i would forget to press it like 20 times in a row.. I did get a dirty heads message about halfway through the tape, but the next 2-3 minutes after the message recorded and played back just fine. .I just tried recording something now and it played back fine.Do I just need to clean the heads or what is going on? I didnt think dirty heads would completely erase footage, i thought the quality just gets downgraded . I have never heard of anything like this before and im kinda scared that now anything i film theres a chance it wont be there after all is said and done

[Janke]

Dirty heads can prevent both recording and playback.

On old analog (VHS-type) recorders, dirty heads degraded the picture, but in the digital domain, they completely destroy the image.

Yes, you need to clean the heads. You do have a cleaning tape, don't you?

[lmw]

I just ordered one last night, should be arriving monday so i wont do any recording or capturing till then