Pics disappeared from laptop!!

My cousin has a Zune and wanted to use my laptop to download some songs. She doesn't have a computer at home so I agreed (big mistake)! I downloaded the Zune software and we apparently overlooked an option to download photos from my computer. I'm certain we never checked any options for it to download pics. Apparently, the box was already checked and we should've unchecked it (way to go Zune!). Trust me when I say, ITunes NEVER did this to me! When she unplugged the device from my laptop, she had about 1500 of my pics on her MP3 player. We plugged it back in and found an option to remove the photos. It clearly stated, "Would you like to remove photos from the device?" Of course, I clicked yes and even thought this was safe because it stated, "from device", not "from hard drive". I read it again before clicking it! After we removed the pics from her Zune, I couldn't find them anywhere. I still can't find them. It didn't put them back where they were, my Kodak software. I NEVER clicked any options approving the pics be deleted from my hard drive! I AM POSITIVE OF THIS! Where could they be? This is driving me crazy and unfortunately I had never backed the pics up (another BIG mistake on my part!). Does anyone have any suggestions of where they could possibly have gone? I know they aren't in any of my media software. I've already checked. I'm not a computer wiz so I may just not be looking in the right place(s). Any help or suggestions is greatly appreciated. And please don't criticize on how I should've, could've, etc. That would be stating the obvious. Lesson learned.