I was uploading files from my external drive to the Dropbox website, and they're all missing.

I have been uploading files/folders to my new Dropbox account and have an external hard drive that I've been uploading to Dropbox. I've been doing it slowly, one folder at a time or several files at a time. Yesterday I attempted to upload a file with lots of videos - this was a Photography class with video lessons. It showed that it was going to take a long time, not unexpected, and I let it run all day. Several times, I lost internet connection, once I was back online though, it continued to upload and there didn't seem to be any problems so I disconnected the internet last night, assuming I could reconnect this morning and it would continue uploading my files. The screen that shows files being uploaded in Dropbox was gone and although a majority of the files were uploaded, not all were. When I went to the external hard drive, those files were also missing. As of right now, I don't know if I've lost them permanently. If so, people need to be aware of this, that there is a chance that you will lose files.....I have no way of getting these files back. 

To know:

• I was uploading files through Dropbox online, not the Dropbox app on my laptop. 
• I did not want these files to be available offline in the Dropbox app but I did not have that set up that way and can not figure out how to do it although I've tried through many resources. 
• My VPN was on. 

Has anyone else gone through this? 

Any solutions?