Backup - OneDrive Issues

kodakjack · Feb 25, 2024

I have a Western Digital external/ portable hard drive that I use for backups. I kept getting prompts to use One Drive, so I figured what the heck. It no sooner started doing a backup and it stopped and said I needed to buy more space. Well, I have my external hard drive, so I decided the heck with that. I then went to do the normal backup that's included with Windows and it told me it could not copy all of the files. If I go to files I want to back up (Documents, Pictures and Videos), many now have One Drive in their file name/ path. What do I do now? How do I get back to being able to back up my files like I'd like to? Is there a way to get the One Drive portion of the files name/ path off of them? We're talking MANY files. HELP! Thanks, I'm obviously clueless.

Berton · Feb 25, 2024

I don't use OneDrive or any other Cloud storage as I have a NAS drive on my home LAN which can be accessed from an computer I Map it on. I have seen written, even by Microsoft, the recommendation to not use the Backup and Restore (Windows 7) in Control Panel.

kodakjack · Feb 25, 2024

Berton said:
I don't use OneDrive or any other Cloud storage as I have a NAS drive on my home LAN which can be accessed from a computer I Map it on. I have seen written, even by Microsoft, the recommendation to not use the Backup and Restore (Windows 7) in Control Panel.

Well, for those who don’t know any better or see stuff on the Net and YouTube, that’s what some recommend. That being said, I have files that now have One Drive in their title/ path. If I don’t use the backup already on my computer, how would/ should I back up my files so a crash or outside influence don’t cause damage? The plus of an external drive is it gets unplugged when not doing a backup. Thanks.

pseymour · Feb 25, 2024

You won't lose anything by unlinking OneDrive from your PC, but it's a good idea to copy the files elsewhere on your PC before doing so. Open your OneDrive folder, select all of the files and folders, and copy them to some other folder that is outside of OneDrive.

Then, you can follow Microsoft's instructions for disconnecting from OneDrive.

Turn off, disable, or uninstall OneDrive - Microsoft Support

Fishmill · Feb 25, 2024

kodakjack said:
What do I do now?

The first thing I would do is find out if some of your files have been MOVED to One Drive....rather than merely copied to One Drive. Your post implies that is so for at least some of your files.

I have no idea how One Drive works in practice.

If they have been moved, my first goal would be to copy them back from One Drive to your own hard drive.

Can you find ALL of your data files on ANY of your own hard drives?

I think I have read recently that some people have found that their files were MOVED to One Drive and are no longer to be found on local hard drives at all. NOT GOOD. In fact, intolerable if you have no other copies anywhere.

cereberus · Feb 25, 2024

Fishmill said:
I have no idea how One Drive works in practice.

What is the point of giving advice if you do not actually know how onedrive works?

FYI

1) Onedrive syncs files in the pc onedrive folders to a similar online file structure.

2) Once files have been copied to online (cloud), user has a choice

1) to keep some or all of the files locally on pc as well as online. You can access the local pc copies immediately.

2) only to keep some or all online (removing them from local drive - creating a directory placeholder in effect). This is called Files on Demand (space is saved on pc but if you need to access them, they have to be downloaded.

You can mix and match i.e. have some files/folders locally and online, or some just online. It depends on a users needs as to which files they want on local pc immediately available or not.

Also if you delete a file locally or online, it is deleted both locally and online.

However, if you uninstall onedrive, the online files are left in place and if you reinstate onedrive, they may be synced back to local drive but depends on whether Files On Demand is set to free space (only store online) or to keep local copy. I strongly advise a user downloads files and stores elsewhere before uninstalling onedrive.

Most issues people have with Onedrive is not understanding how Files On Demand works or what happens if you delete a file, or if you uninstallit.

cereberus · Feb 25, 2024

kodakjack said:
I have a Western Digital external/ portable hard drive that I use for backups. I kept getting prompts to use One Drive, so I figured what the heck. It no sooner started doing a backup and it stopped and said I needed to buy more space. Well, I have my external hard drive, so I decided the heck with that. I then went to do the normal backup that's included with Windows and it told me it could not copy all of the files. If I go to files I want to back up (Documents, Pictures and Videos), many now have One Drive in their file name/ path. What do I do now? How do I get back to being able to back up my files like I'd like to? Is there a way to get the One Drive portion of the files name/ path off of them? We're talking MANY files. HELP! Thanks, I'm obviously clueless.

1) First, copy all files in the local onedrive folders elsewhere.
2) If you have been using Files on Demand, switch it off and then turn it off for all files, and they will be downloaded to pc
3) Copy all newly downloaded files elsewhere.
4) Change the default folders for users system folders (many guides how to do this).

kodakjack · Feb 25, 2024

You guys are talking about things that are above my understanding. I told One Drive to back up my files and it stopped shortly afterwards telling me I had to buy more space. I chose not to do that. I then wanted to do the usual Windows 7 backup and it came back telling me it could not back up all of the files. No explanation given. I am still saving files of my grandsons' pictures on a daily basis and this is what the properties for the most recent ones comes back with. It still has a reference to One Drive:

C:\Users\John\OneDrive\Pictures\Ethan10

The picture is still shown as on my C-Drive, under my account, under Pictures in a folder named Ethan10. Now, that folder was created AFTER the incident with One Drive, yet it has One Drive in its properties/ path. THAT is my concern.

I'm just an average user who is confused with what's going on with this situation. My concern is with backing up my Documents, Pictures and Videos to my external/ portable drive.

Berton · Feb 25, 2024

The only way I see to truly determine if files are still on the computer would be to disconnect from the Internet and try to view/access them

glasskuter · Feb 25, 2024

Above your understanding or not, you have 2 options. Either put your files back onto your local drive or buy more onedrive storage. That's just the way it is when a user has an amount of data that exceeds the 5 gb free onedrive storage MS allows.
Here's how to put your files back into your user folder .

Step 1- You first have to turn off backup folder syncing. This tutorial tells you how and also how to get your files onto your local drive.

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/turn-on-or-off-onedrive-folder-backup-syncing-across-windows-11-devices.4321/

NOTE: ONLY IF FOLDERS DO NOT MOVE TO DEFAULT LOCATION IN THE ABOVE STEP DO THIS

If this happens, then you could try option three in below tutorials to restore the default folder location and move your files manually from Onedrive into the folders..

Step 2 Unlink account & PC from onedrive.

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/unlink-account-and-pc-from-onedrive-in-windows-11.15162/

Once you do this the files you have in onedrive will remain there until you login to Onedrive on the Web and delete them. Sign in - Microsoft OneDrive

Step 3 You can then either uninstall Onedrive or disable it. https://www.elevenforum.com/t/uninstall-and-reinstall-onedrive-in-windows-11.11768/

or use Revo Uninstaller to uninstall Onedrive

I prefer to disable Onedrive rather than uninstalling it. Open Task Manager>Startup Apps. Find Onedrive in the list and, right click on it, select disable. This prevents Onedrive from auto-starting.

kodakjack · Feb 25, 2024

glasskuter said:
Above your understanding or not, you have 2 options. Either put your files back onto your local drive or buy more onedrive storage. That's just the way it is when a user has an amount of data that exceeds the 5 gb free onedrive storage MS allows.
Here's how to put your files back into your user folder .

Step 1- You first have to turn off backup folder syncing. This tutorial tells you how and also how to get your files onto your local drive.

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/turn-on-or-off-onedrive-folder-backup-syncing-across-windows-11-devices.4321/

NOTE: ONLY IF FOLDERS DO NOT MOVE TO DEFAULT LOCATION IN THE ABOVE STEP DO THIS

When I went to that tutorial to set up synch, it says "One Drive not synching.

I tried to follow this tutorial. When I clicked on Set Up Synch, it says " One Drive Not synching".
When I saw that One Drive was taking over my backups, and I did not want to buy more storage, I uninstalled it. Right or wrong, that's what I did. Now what do I do?
I uninstalled One Drive months ago, but my files still have One Drive in their paths.

Berton · Feb 25, 2024

kodakjack said:
Now what do I do?

I'd get an External USB HDD and back up to it. Actually, simply copying folders to it would work, it's what I do.

glasskuter · Feb 25, 2024

you could try option three in below tutorials to restore the default folder location and move your files manually from Onedrive into the folders..

Hazel123 · Feb 25, 2024

It is confusing isn't it? I don't like One Drive - too easy for people to make a mistake.

kodakjack · Feb 25, 2024

glasskuter said:
you could try option three in below tutorials to restore the default folder location and move your files manually from Onedrive into the folders..

Move or Restore Default Location of Desktop Folder in Windows 11

Move or Restore Default Location of Documents Folder in Windows 11 Tutorial

Move or Restore Default Location of Pictures Folder in Windows 11

Move or Restore Default Location of Videos Folder in Windows 11

I tried doing what the tutorial suggested for Documents. When I told it to restore default, is came back with: "Can't move the folder because there is a folder in the same location that can't be redirected. Access Denied".
When I was on the tab that would have allowed me to restore default, it no longer had One Drive in the path, it had C:\Users\John\Documents as I thought it should. The tutorial said to hit OK. What did I do/ not do wrong prevents me from doing this?

glasskuter · Feb 25, 2024

Since in your case you got the horse before the cart and deleted onedrive, I can't tell you where your folders now are since I can't see what you see. Brink writes his tutorials in a very methodical way in the assumption that onedrive is present on a system before the tutorials work like they are supposed to. Also these tutorials are not written under the assumption the users has exceeded his onedrive space.

The folders may have been re-created or left behind when you deleted onedrive. Those individual tutorials were mentioned only if step 1 did not automatically move your default folders.
Let's walk thru this and verify.
Do this.
In file explorer, browse to C:\users\yourusername.
Do you see folders named Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Videos? If so, those folders are on your C: drive. Are any of your files in those folders?

To further verify, in file explorer, right pane under "This PC", Right click each of those folders>select properties>location tab
The location path for each folder should be C:\users\yourusername\foldername

For any missing files, you should be able to find and access them from Onedrive on the web. Sign in - Microsoft OneDrive
You can download these files and put them back into their appropriate folders on C: drive. Depending on how many files are missing, this may be a time consuming thing but
multiple files/folders can be selected and downloaded all at once.

Once you know all your files are where you want them on your system drive, any files in Onedrive on the Web can be deleted.

kodakjack · Feb 26, 2024

glasskuter said:
Since in your case you got the horse before the cart and deleted onedrive, I can't tell you where your folders now are since I can't see what you see. Brink writes his tutorials in a very methodical way in the assumption that onedrive is present on a system before the tutorials work like they are supposed to. Also these tutorials are not written under the assumption the users has exceeded his onedrive space.

The folders may have been re-created or left behind when you deleted onedrive. Those individual tutorials were mentioned only if step 1 did not automatically move your default folders.
Let's walk thru this and verify.
Do this.
In file explorer, browse to C:\users\yourusername.
Do you see folders named Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Videos? If so, those folders are on your C: drive. Are any of your files in those folders?

To further verify, in file explorer, right pane under "This PC", Right click each of those folders>select properties>location tab
The location path for each folder should be C:\users\yourusername\foldername

For any missing files, you should be able to find and access them from Onedrive on the web. Sign in - Microsoft OneDrive
You can download these files and put them back into their appropriate folders on C: drive. Depending on how many files are missing, this may be a time consuming thing but
multiple files/folders can be selected and downloaded all at once.

Once you know all your files are where you want them on your system drive, any files in Onedrive on the Web can be deleted.

When using file explorer, I have Desktop, Documents, Pictures and Videos. The path shown is C:\Users\John\One Drive\Documents. The same goes for the Pictures. Even though I uninstalled One Drive, the path still exists and it puts new documents and new pictures into the One Drive path. When I want it to go back to the default path, C:\Users\John\Documents or Pictures, it won't let me go back to that as a path. It does not ask me if I want to create a new folder. It does not let me move folders from old folder to default ( steps in the tutorial). As I've previously stated, the new pictures I saved last night say C:\Users\john\one drive\Ethan10 as the folder to place them. ALL of my documents and pictures have one drive in the path. I guess that's as far as One Drive got in the backup before it told me I needed to buy more space.
I think what it's telling me will happen is where I would want to be - without any connection to One Drive. I just wish it would do it for me.

glasskuter · Feb 26, 2024

Since file preservation being of biggest importance here, If it were me, I would first make sure I had copies of all my files on external media, no matter where they currently reside. If they are the system drive, copy them to external media. Those that are in onedrive download them and copy to the external media. (Copying rather than moving is necessary to keep from having permission issues on the files.)

Then I would go nuclear
Create a new local account and make it administrator. It's folders will automatically be located in C:\users\newusername.
Restart, login to new account and copy the files into the new user folder.
Delete the old account and delete any files in onedrive from onedrive on the web.

Yes, you will have to setup this new account to your liking.

pparks1 · Feb 27, 2024

Hazel123 said:
It is confusing isn't it? I don't like One Drive - too easy for people to make a mistake.

I love one drive. Been using it successfully at home for 7+ years, and using at work for the last 5 or so. Never have problems or make mistakes with it.