Question How Do I Roll Back Onedrive?!

[flon_klar]

So last night, Onedrive asked if it could sync my files to the cloud as backup. I said Sure, couldn't hurt.

I was SO wrong!

I got up this morning to find ALL my desktop items GONE! Not backed up, removed and stored elsewhere. Completely unacceptable!

I did a little research today, and I don't see anything that allows a rollback of the changes. Is there anything in Onedrive that will reverse its previous actions and put all my stuff back where it goes? Do I have to do it manually? That could take days!

 

[rgd1101]

do you see your files in onedrive?

 

[flon_klar]

do you see your files in onedrive?

I can see some of them, so I assume they’re all there. I didn’t account for every missing file though.

 

[flon_klar]

Copilot answer:

OneDrive’s Restore your OneDrive feature helps Microsoft 365 subscribers undo all the actions that occurred on any files and folders within the last 30 days. If any OneDrive files or folders were deleted, overwritten, corrupted, or infected by malware, you can restore your entire OneDrive to a previous time.

Ok, I’ll look at that, but it sounds like I’m restoring a corrupted OneDrive, not a missing PC filing system.

 

[flon_klar]

OK, this thing is really out of control.

I attempted to restore my OneDrive to 1 week prior, when I knew it would be safe. Even though OneDrive told me the restoration was complete- nothing was restored.

At that point, I looked at my OneDrive files to make sure they were all still there; they were NOT! I should clarify- The files that I had purposely put into OneDrive several years ago were all intact. It was the files that OneDrive recently moved, removed, or otherwise appropriated that were missing.

I then attempted to restore to 3 WEEKS prior to the incident. Again, OneDrive assured me that my files had been restored, and again, THEY WERE NOT.

I poked around for hours, looking for my missing files

I then received a notification from OneDrive, telling me that a very large number of files had been sent to the Recycle Bin. I rushed to the Bin to see what was there. It was full of empty folders and files with no values. I was furious and frustrated. These were all my files from my Desktop, all my photos, all my documents!

I suddenly had the idea to look inside the Recycle Bin ON MY COMPUTER. Nearly every one of the many files was directly deleted from the OneDrive folder. Do I assume that One Drive, instead of restoring my files, moved them all to the Recycle Bin? I don't know what's going on here, but its starting to look really evil. Can someone give me some kind of direction to take this in? Otherwise, it looks like I have to go through the Recycle Bin, restore each individual file back to OneDrive, then move them back to their original locations.

 

[rgd1101]

1)stop restoring.
2)backup your data to something other than onedrive.
3)download/restore the missing file from onedrive/recycle bin. then backup to somewhere else

 

[lantis3]

Googled, didn't read.

https://www.techradar.com/best/best-free-data-recovery-software

BTW, better have an external usb drive or NAS for additional backups. You can't really trust cloud backup completely.

 

[flon_klar]

1)stop restoring.
2)backup your data to something other than onedrive.
3)download/restore the missing file from onedrive/recycle bin. then backup to somewhere else

1) I can't restore if there's nothing to restore, or if I can't find it.

2) That's not the point. I HAVE off-site backup; my files are backed up. But the fact that OneDrive can just take all my files and move them somewhere where I can't find them (especially when I'm offline), then claim that I can restore everything back to how it originally was and then NOT do it, is just mind-blowing. My file system is completely screwed for the moment, until I have the time to restore from my off-site storage. Even then, I'm not sure how well THAT will go, since I've never had to full-scale use it before.

3) If for some reason I DO have to restore from the Recycle Bin, I think it's going to be a huge mess. I don't know for sure what files are included- I haven't gone through each individual file, and there are 1000s of them. And I'll probably have to restructure my file system from the ground up.

 

[lantis3]

Is it possible you moved the files somewhere accidently?

Try Everything from https://www.voidtools.com/ to search files.

 

[rgd1101]

reset the sync
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...p in,then click on the OneDrive desktop app.

 

[kerberos_20]

in onedrive there is setting to disable "keep up free space", that way nothing moves away from PC, online backup is there, but files remain offline on drive aswell

 

[flon_klar]

Just wanted to thank everyone who responded to my issue with your suggestions. I have re-located my files in one of several OneDrive folders on my computer, and I have been restoring them one-by-one.