Oh, man. Did un-installing the sims2 package installer get rid of all that content, or was it something else? To be more clear, I'll bullet list the sequence of events:

Phase 1
*Have TS2 with all EP but not all SP
*Origin gives TS2 Ultimate for free and I download it
*My Documents\EA Games I copy the entire Sims 2 folder contents to The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection Folder
*Start Origins TS2 Ultimate, all my saves, content, and saved sims work

Phase 2
*Uninstall the old TS2
*Deleted The Sims 2 folder from My Documents\EA Games
*Uninstalled Sims2 Package Installer

Phase 3
*Started up Origin TS2 Ultimate to continue game
*Something seems off, where is my save?
*Checked The Sims 2 Ultimate Edition folder, size was about 250 MB when it should have been 1.2GB
*Denial, Rage, Depression, Bargaining, Acceptance

I can deal with losing the custom content, but the saves and saved sims will be work to reconstruct.

By "Sims2 Package Installer" I assume you mean the Sims 2 Clean Installer? Unless you're updating it, you don't have to uninstall S2CI as it's a separate program. Uninstalling the S2CI shouldn't do anything to your game except resetting file icons.

Most likely you forgot a step. Sounds like you had two copies of the game on your computer at one point. Not sure how this will work, but it's probably not a very good thing. Always make sure the first program is properly gone from the computer before you try to install another copy of it, or they'll most likely overwrite.

The first rule to not losing everything is to never delete something until you're sure everything works the way you want it to work. It's better to have two copies of the folders than none at all. It's also possible the folder is still in your trash bin, so check there before you go into panic mode.

To simplify the checklist on how to go about:

1: Save a copy of the entire sims folder in My Documents\EA Games, and store it somewhere away from the folder you're installing/uninstalling (the Desktop is easiest, but external harddrive to be 100% sure you've got it)
2: Uninstall the original games, make sure everything is gone before you proceed.
3: Install the Ultimate Collection. Start it up and make sure the game works before you proceed.
4: Replace the files (move out the ones the UC made, so you have a copy in case something goes wrong, then move or copy in your old files. DON'T overwrite because it can lead to file corruption or loss of files, and DON'T cut & paste because if you accidentally do something stupid while the computer is working on it you'll end up losing the files. Moving or copying is always safer, because if something happens you'll always have the rest of the files).
5: Go ingame, enable downloads, quit the game, restart the game.

Okay I'm no tech, but I do immediately see one big mistake. Step one should have been back up all current sims 2 file to an external hard drive, step two should have been uninstall the game. When you downloaded the UC that was also installing it and there should have been no sims 2 game on your computer as that is like trying to install it over the top of your already existing one.

Thanks guys. It definitely was wrong of me to just delete that The Sims 2 folder without backing it up. Fortunately, there were ways. For me it was MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition v6.8. It's great if all you need to recover is 1GB or less, otherwise it wants you to pay $65 to unlock unlimited recovery. So I used it to get the N001 folder and that was it. I tried Recuva, but it was slow as molasses and it renames files and numbers them, making it absolutely useless for me. PCInspector didn't even work. So, I got the neighborhood, saves, and sims back and all I have to do is dowload all the clean templates for the other neighborhoods. Thanks again!

Yeh what they said you didn't save the content in another place, if it's still on your computer though it will uninstal that too sorry to say, you need an external drive for any sort of games that you play and interact with or RPG games other wise it's bye bye to your saved games and characters, especially batman or assasins creed games and that's a bummer when you lose your saved games for that always ALWAYS back-up every day in case something goes wrong.

Not quite true. I've moved my folder to the Desktop several times and it doesn't uninstall it from there. It just can't be where the game expects to find it.

The game won't touch anything outside of its folder directories. My backups are sitting on my Desktop and the game can't touch them, because it doesn't even know they're there. If you pull the "The Sims 2" folder from the "EA Games" folder in My Documents, the game won't magically know where you hid them, and it will simply generate a fresh new folder.