I have pictures on my phone (htc inspire 4g) that are saved then within 5 days of being taken/downloaded they just dissappear. and if i delete photos then they come back but appear as a black screen with "deleted" written in white. how do i get this to stop happening and actually save photos?

You may try mobile phone picture recovery like asoftech photo recovery which helped me before. You can download trial for free
http://www.asoftech.com/apr/

Please be noted that your phone memory should show as a drive letter in your explorer, if not, you need to take out your memory card and connect using a card reader, or plug-in to card reader slot if there's any on your computer.

One of my friends has encountered the same problem with u and it took him quite a long time to find a program that he couldrecover HTC mobile phone data. I just remember that he connect his touch to his computer , and run the program. And I ask my friend to tell me how to find the wonderful software, here is it http://www.card-data-recovery.com/htc-recovery.htm My friend told me that if I use Mac I should choose a different version of this data recovery program. Wish it could be of some help!
http://www.card-data-recovery.com/htc-recovery.htm

Very common problem with the inspire take it to your service provider they will install an update/hot fix for you for free