iTunes completely deleting my music files from my PC, in albums.

iTunes is deleting my files from Windows Explorer, and doing so in albums. It seems to be about one new album every 3 months. It is deleting albums that I am CERTAIN I had.

As proof of this, I have the albums on my iPhone 11, which required them to be in my iTunes library to begin with to make the transfer.

What's more, whenever I plug my iPhone in to then to copy the albums back from my iPhone (since they're still there), they just magically... don't show up when I am rooting around my iPhone's music library, using the Windows iTunes app, as does about 50% of the music files on my phone.

I have further banned iTunes from editing my Windows explorer file library, but it ignores these "preferences" that I set. Further still, it deletes the mp3 files from my Windows file library. Occasionally I catch them in my recycle bin in time, but not usually. I also refuse to let it connect to the iTunes store.

My workaround for this has been to make a backup of all of my music files onto my D-drive, and then have iTunes playing the other files from my C-drive. When they delete a new album, I will just copy it back from my D-drive.

If anyone ever figures out a way to stop this from happening, I'm all ears.