VS 2008 Web Deployment - prevent folder from being deleted

I have an ASP.NET MVC 2 project that is built and then deployed using a web deployment project (Visual Studio 2008). The site has an uploads folder in the root of the site where user generated images are saved to. Whenever the build is run (using team city) the uploads folder is deleted meaning any previously uploaded images are deleted for good.

Is there anyway in the deploy开发者_开发技巧ment project that i can tell it not to delete this folder? Or will i have to copy it out prebuild and copy it back in afterbuild?

Any help is greatly appreciated