my photos are missing/hidden after i updated to ios 6

i have an ipod touch that had a cracked screen for several months so i didn't use it until i fixed it. after about 4 months i charged it and cut it back on to find that it was disabled and i had to wait 731 minutes before i could put in my passcode. i wanted to see if i can undisable it so i would not have to wait so long. so i connected it to itunes and it gave me the option to Update only without restoring it so i can retrieve my pictures, music, ect. im not sure when icloud came out but i know it wasnt on my ipod's os (i think i updated it from 4.2.1). after i updated it (sucessful the first time) i had ios 6. i typed in my passcode i somehow miraculously remembered and went through the new prompts. i got to the homescreen, my 8 apps were still there, music was all still there, but my camera roll contained no pictures in it. i went to Settings>General>About and saw i only had 8 apps/370 songs/0 photos/0 videos with only 388mb left on my 8gb itouch. the thing is everything is small and was barely 2gb total but when i connected to itunes there was a large amount of data under the "Other" yellow bar. Leading me to the conclusion that my 1000+ pictures and videos are hidden. i set up an icloud and under my manage storage tab it says i have a camera roll consisting of 2.9GB of pictures and videos but i dont know how to get to them...

Please Help...

-will backing everything up save my photos? because they're not appearing in my photostream

-is there also a way into my ipod using like Iexplorer or IFunbox to get them and save them to my computer and if so how would i get to them

-the ipod doesnt show under "my computer" and im not getting the import option to transfer them