You do not say what version of Elgg you were upgrading from. Also, there are many previous discussions on Elgg upgrades and images (in no case have the images actually been deleted - usually the permissions on the data directory were not set correctly). Perhaps you should Google for them before posting here?

I'm sorry. I'm very new to elgg. I upgraded from 1.7.5 to 1.7.6.

I've been searching around and haven't found a fix. I guess I'll continue to google.

Thanks anyways.

Nothing changed in Elgg's profile icon code between 1.7.5 and 1.7.6.

No database changes occurred in the upgrade from 1.7.5 to 1.7.6 so you could just copy over the 1.7.5 code to go back. I think it very likely that if your profile icons are not working in 1.7.6, they won't work in 1.7.6. The likely cause is that something else change around the time of the upgrade - a new plugin, configuration, server.