From past experience, I unplugged the keyboard so that I wouldn’t accidentally hit enter. Photorec stops the process without asking for confirmation.
When I got home, I decided to jiggle the mouse so that the screen blanking would clear. I accidentally touched the right-mouse-button.
Right-click to paste is demented. Ditto for middle-click to paste. It seems I highlighted a CR at some point. BAM. Quit. No prompt. Process over.
I guess before I restart the process, I’ll manually sift through the smoldering heap of 15,783 unnamed jpg files, 2,396 mp3s, 248 oggs and 95 movs to find out if my vacation photos and MP3 collection were recoverable or not.