I tried to disable OneDrive & lost almost all my Desktop items

Brink will give his advice when he comes on line. Truly, at this point, you've done so much I seriously doubt we can tell what state you are in.

silvanet said:

Damn, I unlinked OneDrive and just noticed that it sucked ALL my local Documents off of my local computer and now they're in the cloud. That includes a bunch of pdf files I had saved locally. That now becomes a huge problem for me. I'll have to first re-link OneDrive to see what it did with my files.

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Ok why did you do this? If you did it as part of my post 15, I specifically stated prior to unlinking onedrive
"3. While still logged into old account COPY & PASTE (NOT MOVE) any files you want saved onto that computer into folders onto external media.. (Documents, Desktop, Music, Pictures, Downloads.) It is important to use copy and paste to prevent permission problems. (Note: any files in Onedrive will remain there until you access Onedrive on the web and remove them.)"
This was to insure that all files were backed up to external media to make sure you did not lose anything.

OR did you just do it for the sake of doing it?

Thanks, I just spent a couple of hours on the phone with Microsoft support. They tried to tell me that when I unlinked from OneDrive that may have completely messed up the syncing that would have taken all my local files into the cloud. If I had known that is what setting up OneDrive just so I could do a backup, I would never have done it at all. Their answer was a system restore, which I had already tried. I had four recent restore points from before this happened. I tried all of them, and in each instance I got back this:



Of course, I turned off my AV and I got the same message every time on all four available restore points. MS support told me the next step was to reach out to their cloud server support people, but they don't speak over the phone. Their only access will be on a chat. So that's where I'm at with this right now.

silvanet said:

1. No, I do not use a MS account on this PC. It is a local account login.

Click to expand...

11 requires MS account, juts like android or iphone, period. You can resist, but it is inevitable. Better get used to it.

silvanet said:

2. I do not want OneDrive at all. I tried to get rid of it following instructions and that's how I got in this mess.

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The correct way is to: 1. Download all files via Files OnDemand. 2. Unlink OneDrive. 3. Eradicate it.
The problem is that there can be 3 versions of OneDrive, each in a different location, MS messed up.

silvanet said:

I freaked and tried just doing a system restore, but the system was not able to restore.

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System restore is basically deprecated, because it is useless as you have found out. System Backup is the way to go.

TairikuOkami said:

The correct way is to: 1. Download all files via Files OnDemand. 2. Unlink OneDrive. 3. Eradicate it.

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Download what files? I can't even log in to my O365 account. I get endless repeated requests for my email, then I'm repeatedly sent codes, and after I enter the codes, I'm asked for my PIN, then I'm still not logged in to the Office account which would be the only way I could reach the files Microsoft deleted from my local user account and put somewhere in the cloud that i can't reach.

silvanet said:

In my case it deleted and did not suck the files off my computers pre-existing local Desktop into the OneDrive cloud. It just made up its own Desktop in the cloud, deleting all my stuff off of my computer.

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Sorry to hear that, silvanet. It should have synchronized and not make up its own Desktop. I wish you luck. Sorry I could not have been of more assistance.

glasskuter said:

Brink will give his advice when he comes on line. Truly, at this point, you've done so much I seriously doubt we can tell what state you are in.

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@glasskuter , thanks so much for your help on this. Microsoft Support contacted me and had me go through some steps where I could now see many of my lost files, even the ones that were on my original desktop. I don't know, this may have something to do with having waited some time for the syncs to complete (there were a large number of files), but I feel encouraged.

One thing is that the file locations of the files in the OneDrive Recycle Bin appear to be not to any local drive of mine where they were originally. They're not the same files as are in the desktop Recycle Bin of my local user. The ones I see in that Bin are ones I know that I deleted. The ones in the OneDrive Recycle Bin appear to be the files OneDrive wiped out during my attempt to set it up to do what I thought was a quick system backup. In the OD Recycle Bin I see url paths in something like "personal/......" with a long code next that may be some identifier to my OD cloud, then my old tree structure where I had saved my files. That seems to align with the few shortcuts that were left on my desktop by OD, but none of them worked because they linked to paths that would never be found on my computer. I had to manually fix those shortcuts to work again.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I'm encouraged that I may be able to recover my lost files, or at least many of them. I selected one file from the OneDrive Recycle Bin while logged in from the onedrive.com website. BTW, MS wants me to log in with my MS account, then sends me an email code, then fails to log in and goes through the whole thing in an endless loop. I finally selected using my PIN, which is my local user login PIN, and that worked.

OK, I hope @Brink may take a look and suggest what to do now. Or maybe from here you can walk me through. The OneDrive Recycle Bin file I selected to try recovering was not recovered to my local drive, but to OneDrive. It was recovered to the cloud, which is exactly where I don't want any of those files to go. How do I get them back on a local drive? It doesn't have to be my system C: drive. Once I have them locally, I want to remove them from OneDrive's cloud location, but I don't want OneDrive to touch my saved local drive recovered files. In fact, I want to then remove everything OneDrive has of my files.

If it is required to run OneDrive so I can use my Office 365 account programs, I want any files saved there to be whatever is minimally required. I will make sure that any files I save using Office will be on a local drive. I don't want that drive in any way associated with OneDrive. I'd totally get rid of it if I could. If OneDrive automatically takes over my C: drive locations, I want to be aware of that so I can avoid them like the plague.

Is this possible? Right now, from what I know, it seems I can recover the OneDrive Recycle Bin. Now what I need to do is take all the precautions I mention above: 1) once recovered to the OneDrive cloud, I want all my files somehow copied to say my E: drive under the directory structure I had before pre-OD in my original C:\users\MyLocalUser 2) once copied locally, I don't want OD messing with those files at all; 3) I want all my recovered and copied files completely deleted from OD on the cloud; 4) If I have to keep a minimal installation of OD to run my Office programs (something I don't ever recall being necessary before now), I want it to be minimal, with minimal storage on the cloud that I plan to regularly clean out.

I'd like to do this fairly quickly because MS support has switched the person who was helping me, and the new person knows nothing of my prior communications. He's starting all over with a series of weasel disclaimers and allegations that everyone who sets up OneDrive is made clearly aware of everything that will happen -- so NOT true.

@silvanet,

You should be able to save them directly from your online OneDrive to where you want on your PC. It'll be the same process as saving/downloading anything from a website.

TairikuOkami said:

11 requires MS account, juts like android or iphone, period. You can resist, but it is inevitable. Better get used to it.

The correct way is to: 1. Download all files via Files OnDemand. 2. Unlink OneDrive. 3. Eradicate it.
The problem is that there can be 3 versions of OneDrive, each in a different location, MS messed up.

Enable or Disable OneDrive Files On-Demand in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off OneDrive Files On-Demand for your account in Windows 10 and Windows 11. You can use OneDrive to sync files and folders between your computer and the cloud, so you can get to your files from anywhere - your computer, your mobile device, and even...

www.elevenforum.com

System restore is basically deprecated, because it is useless as you have found out. System Backup is the way to go.

32 Free Backup Software Tools: Ranked and Reviewed

Backup programs can automatically make copies of your files for safekeeping. Here are reviews of dozens of free backup software. This list includes local and remote backup options.

www.lifewire.com

Click to expand...

Ok, I'll try to figure out if Files OnDemand is for me. My question: 1) I have confidential client privileged documents and private personal data on some of my files. I don't think I want them in the cloud. I'm also sure the clients whose confidentiality privilege it is, don't want me making those files available to third parties. How secure are those files in OneDrive on the cloud? I've always felt safer with personal control over them and off site copies. Were there ever some fishing expedition that opened me to some national security no knock search & seizure, I would be in a heap of problems trying to protect privileged information.

Brink said:

@silvanet,

You should be able to save them directly from your online OneDrive to where you want on your PC. It'll be the same process as saving/downloading anything from a website.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll move ahead then.
Well, bad news, I tried selecting and restoring all, but none were restored. I'll try one at a time folders that I know are most important to me.

OK, I restored a folder that was important to me. It was restored from the OneDrive Recycle Bin to the cloud storage. I copied the files to my desired local drive. If I now delete the ones restored to the cloud, will OndDrive mess with my newly created drive at all? How should I configure OneDrive to be able to use my Office but still be able to clean out anything automatically saved in the cloud?

I found a Personal Vault in OneDrive, but to open it I'm asked to verify, which always fails, the same way if I try to use the MS login method. I got around that by selecting to use my PIN (it is not a MS account PIN, but my local user sign in PIN, which works when I select that option, but for opening the Personal Vault I'm not given any option. It sends the code to my email. I use it, and the dialog window hangs forever not logging me in to use the Personal Vault.

Well, nope, I cannot download of copy the files restored to the cloud into another physical drive on my local computer. OK, I created a folder there for documents for my local user but not in the C drive. OneDrive must identify that as the same as trying to copy it into the C drive location because after what is an apparent successful copy the destination folder was empty. I created a completely different folder (not in a users folder) in my desired destination drive, and then the files were copied. So, finally, I got the files off of OneDrive. I'm now going to try to delete them from OneDrive, or should I not do that?

And, after several minutes the verification of the Personal Vault did finally unlock it.

If the files are in your onedrive recycle bin, they will automatically be deleted in 30 days from the date they were put there or I believe you can empty your onedrive recycle bin.
Files located in other onedrive folders will stay there until you manually delete them.

OK, but yikes on what you are telling me. I saw my file folders in there. One that is full of professional files is titled AAFS, but now when I went back to try to recover them -- they're not there! There's something extremely strange going on.

silvanet said:

something extremely strange going on

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Sounds like it.TBH here, considering the condition of your Onedrive, it has been very difficult to follow exactly what is going on by all you stated. We can't see it for ourselves.

silvanet said:

finally, I got the files off of OneDrive.

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I'm glad you at least preserved your files.

glasskuter said:

Brink will give his advice when he comes on line. Truly, at this point, you've done so much I seriously doubt we can tell what state you are in.

Ok why did you do this? If you did it as part of my post 15, I specifically stated prior to unlinking onedrive
"3. While still logged into old account COPY & PASTE (NOT MOVE) any files you want saved onto that computer into folders onto external media.. (Documents, Desktop, Music, Pictures, Downloads.) It is important to use copy and paste to prevent permission problems. (Note: any files in Onedrive will remain there until you access Onedrive on the web and remove them.)"
This was to insure that all files were backed up to external media to make sure you did not lose anything.

OR did you just do it for the sake of doing it?

Click to expand...

No, sorry about being unclear, but that unliking came at my attempt to get Microsoft support to help me on this. I'm not sure how any of OneDrive works, but it did take a long time for it to suck up all my files. They did not make it into the folders OneDrive was creating, but they made it to the OneDrive Recycle Bin. Later, on a follow up with Microsoft after I had gotten your help, they showed me how to check the Recycle Bin and told me what to do then, but I was not at all feeling comfortable, so I stopped right there and came back to you.

I think all my stuff is there. I'll come back tomorrow and see exactly how I should proceed. I did keep in mind what you said about copying and not moving the files.

I tested with one tiny file. I restored it and found that it got restored to the cloud, so the copying would be from there to a local drive. Brink did check in and told me I could download those files into any folder or drive on my computer. Someone else recommended using OneDrive's Files On Demand, but again I'm not comfortable with that. See ya tomorrow sometime.

Once you get this mess straightened out and your files located wherever they are going to remain permanently, I strongly recommend you make an image of that drive.

silvanet said:

How secure are those files in OneDrive on the cloud?

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Not at all, because OneDrive lacks the basic feature called 2FA (real 2FA), which every other services provides.
Store confidential files in a separate folder and after you encrypt them yourself, you can back them up in OneDrive.

Microsoft OneDrive has implemented several security measures to protect your data:

1. Encryption: OneDrive uses AES 256-bit encryption for data at rest and SSL/TLS encryption for data in transit.
2. Two-Factor Authentication: This adds an extra layer of security by requiring a second form of verification when logging in.
3. Access Controls: Microsoft employs a “zero-standing access” policy, meaning engineers do not have access to the service unless explicitly granted for a specific incident.
4. Personal Vault: This feature provides an additional layer of security for your most sensitive files.

However, like any cloud service, it’s essential to take extra precautions, such as using strong passwords and enabling two-factor authentication.

OneDrive can be a valuable asset if you understand how it works and use it properly. As this thread illustrates, OneDrive can be a total disaster if you have no understanding of how it works.

OneDrive is NOT a backup and is NOT just another place in the cloud to store files. OneDrive does only one thing and does it well. OneDrive is a sync in the cloud of everything that happens in your local OneDrive folder. If you delete a file in your local OneDrive folder, it is deleted in cloud OneDrive. If you modify a file in local OneDrive, the file is modified in cloud OneDrive. If you add a file to your local OneDrive folder, it is added to cloud OneDrive. Cloud OneDrive simply mirrors everything that happens in your local OneDrive folder. All this happens in real-time.

OneDrive is complicated by the "Files On Demand" feature which by default is turned ON. In your OneDrive folder all your files are listed in File Explorer as if they are there locally. Files are not physically located locally unless you choose to download them from cloud OneDrive "On Demand".

You have the option to turn "Files On Demand" OFF and keep all your files both locally and in the cloud, totally mirrored at all times., This is how I've chosen to use OneDrive for the past 15 years and it has served me well. If you have enough local space, this is how I recommend you use OneDrive.

Now let me explain how, with Microsoft Windows 11, Microsoft has royally screwed things up. Microsoft decided that when you update to Windows 11 that they would, without the user's permission or knowledge, automatically move everything from your local Documents, Pictures, Desktop folders to the cloud OneDrive folders of the same folder names. This was obviously not well thought out. The consequences can be seen with what the originator of this thread has experienced. This disaster should never have happened. Microsoft should never have made this decision.

If you don't want this to happen, it can be fixed by first turning OFF Microsoft's OneDrive "Backup Feature" and then moving the files from the OneDrive folders back to the local folders of the same name.

@Brink Do you have a step-by-step tutorial on how to make this fix?

TraderGary said:

Microsoft OneDrive has implemented several security measures to protect your data:

1. Encryption: OneDrive uses AES 256-bit encryption for data at rest and SSL/TLS encryption for data in transit.
2. Two-Factor Authentication: This adds an extra layer of security by requiring a second form of verification when logging in.
3. Access Controls: Microsoft employs a “zero-standing access” policy, meaning engineers do not have access to the service unless explicitly granted for a specific incident.
4. Personal Vault: This feature provides an additional layer of security for your most sensitive files.

However, like any cloud service, it’s essential to take extra precautions, such as using strong passwords and enabling two-factor authentication.

Click to expand...

Having done tons of data recover over many years, I know that if you use SSDs the chances of data recovery drop dramatically. Also, if you turn on encryption, data recovery can become almost impossible. So there are a lot more things to take into account. In my case, where I have many years of legally privileged confidential information including my own and some of other attorneys for whom I provided work product under their clients' privileged confidentiality, sharing my files is not at all useful or helpful, especially the cavalier MS automatic assumptions without permission or consent. They only created a nightmare.

I don't know about most people happily using OneDrive, but I also have a ton of personal file and document content that I would not want available in the cloud, and photos I would only share with family - and I don't need OneDrive to share photos with them. Still, thanks for your clear information that MS never provided before jumping in and cheerily (smiley faced) encouragement to follow their instructions that at no point informed me what they were going to do. Had they done so, I could have FIRST moved all my private files to another local drive, away from their intrusions. This is one of those cases that make me hate Microsoft.

And as to their "policy" without explicitly granted access, that's BS. I know of cases where they have already granted access without notice to their customers under questionably used NSA warrants, creating a hellscape for attorneys. Absolutely nothing prevents people with sufficiently high access authority from violating those policies. The same with the "personal vaults." I trust no one. That's my starting point policy.