How can I recover old pictures after updating to Lollipop? (aware Gallery became Photos)

[AC Question]

I recently updated my phone to a Nexus 5, before the Lollipop update. When I did this, it carried over ALL of my old pictures (900 of them) into one Gallery folder, and any pictures I took with the new phone went into their own new folder.

Then I updated to Lollipop. I know Gallery switched to "Photos", which, fine, whatever, but Photos only has the pictures I took with the new camera. After some digging, I found my old pictures in ES File Explorer. However, there is no thumbnail view and it's a 5-option process to open each one to see what it is (Pick a folder-Pick a random numbered image file-Open as: image-Choose Photos or ES Image Browser.) Not convenient. A friend said I can access them on the cloud, but I don't want to use data/find WiFi for pictures that used to be readily available in my phone's system.

Right now the only folders I can find in Photos are ALL or HIGHLIGHTS, which only have the few new pictures I've taken with my new device.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Any photos on Internal Storage should show up in Photos, as long as there isn't a file called ".nomedia" in the directory, so use a file manager app to look in that directory for ".nomedia".

If you don't find it, then open Photos, swipe in from the left, and tap "On Device." Nothing shows up there? Tap the menu button at the upper right and tap Refresh. How about now?

 

[Melissa F]

I have the same problem. Ihave tried both the things suggested; but, nothing has worked. I'm very upset, my families vaca photos are just gone. Please help!!!!