Need urgent help. In the process of backing up pictures with W10 file manager...

[logan832]

I copied all the files from the DCIM folder to a portable hard drive. Everything copied over, but it started to lag really bad. Someone all the ones I copied over got deleted, and now there are no folders or files at all when I click the phone in the file explorer. However, while the phone is still plugged in I do see all the pictures are in tact on the phone. I am very afraid to unplug it though, due to all the files from the phone being seemingly gone in the file explore.

Almost had a heart attack there, as I am backing all this up for my mother who will be upgrading her phone. We are talking about 4,000 pictures spanning back years...

What can I do at this point to make sure nothing gets deleted? Risk unplugging the phone considering I can still view everything on the phone?

 

[USAFRet]

If all the pics still exist on the phone - STOP
Start over

Do NOT copy the whole thing at once.
Subfolders from that DCIM...copy one or two date folders at a time.
Not the whole thing all at once.

 

[logan832]

If all the pics still exist on the phone - STOP
Start over

Do NOT copy the whole thing at once.
Subfolders from that DCIM...copy one or two date folders at a time.
Not the whole thing all at once.

Ok, I will do that. However, I am afraid to disconnect because on the computer all the backup files I copied are gone, and there is nothing in the phone folder (but I can see everything on the phone itself). If I disconnect, everything wont disappear on the phone you think?

 

[USAFRet]

If all the pics still exist on the phone - STOP
Start over

Do NOT copy the whole thing at once.
Subfolders from that DCIM...copy one or two date folders at a time.
Not the whole thing all at once.

Ok, I will do that. However, I am afraid to disconnect because on the computer all the backup files I copied are gone, and there is nothing in the phone folder (but I can see everything on the phone itself). If I disconnect, everything wont disappear on the phone you think?

If all you did was COPY, they should, in theory, still exist on the phone.

 

[juannfox]

If all the pics still exist on the phone - STOP
Start over

Do NOT copy the whole thing at once.
Subfolders from that DCIM...copy one or two date folders at a time.
Not the whole thing all at once.

Ok, I will do that. However, I am afraid to disconnect because on the computer all the backup files I copied are gone, and there is nothing in the phone folder (but I can see everything on the phone itself). If I disconnect, everything wont disappear on the phone you think?

If all you did was COPY, they should, in theory, still exist on the phone.

I agree with USAFRet here, it's not like the phone is gonna let you check out 4 thousand pics just from ram/cache right? Just download a file explorer for the phone (or use the default one) and go to camera/dcim folder and see if the files are there; if they are, then there's no risk in unplugging at all, the files are in the phone and it's your windows explorer that lagged out.-