Lost All files from Documents After Restart – No Recovery Found

Rather than going around in circles, I believe in starting at the beginning to be able to get a complete picture so we can try to get things in their proper perspective. (we can't see it like you can). I have a couple of direct basic questions about things you have probably already done.

1. I am assuming this is a laptop, correct? Is this her own personal device or is it school provided?
2. Does this teacher use a Microsoft account to sign in to this device? If so, please Right click on her Pictures folder, select properties, general tab.
Under location does the folder path for that folder indicate Onedrive?
3. Then do the same for her documents folder. What is the default location of that folder right now?
4. Exactly how did this teacher go about trying to move the documents folder in the first place?

andrew129260 said:

It honestly would not have bugged me so much it if it didn't happen so often and they didn't have such a holier than thou attitude at all times.

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I've been there a few time.

glasskuter said:

Secondly, her original document folder was not in her user folder to start with. It was in Onedrive. This complicates the issue even further

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One of several reasons I don't like OneDrive! They tried to make it too automatic with the result that it's confusing what it's actually doing!

gunrunnerjohn said:

One of several reasons I don't like OneDrive! They tried to make it too automatic with the result that it's confusing what it's actually doing!

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Yes, I've used OneDrive since its inception over 16 years ago. They've taken it from being very straightforward and easy to use to trying to make everything work behind the user's back. They've assumed, and quite rightly, that the average user will not bother to learn how OneDrive actually works.

I'm a Microsoft 365 subscriber and my terabyte of OneDrive remains an integral and valuable part of my backup strategy.

TraderGary said:

Yes, I've used OneDrive since its inception over 16 years ago. They've taken it from being very straightforward and easy to use to trying to make everything work behind the user's back. They've assumed, and quite rightly, that the average user will not bother to learn how OneDrive actually works.

OneDrive remains an integral and valuable part of my backup strategy.

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Therein lies the problem. The fact that it's doing things that many users don't realize is why it bites people in the butt now and again! When I removed my files from my machine and "carefully" stored them in the cloud, that's when I knew it was no longer welcome at my place! Yes, if you have your head in the sand, in most situations your files probably are preserved. However, if you don't understand exactly what is going on, you can shoot yourself in the foot quite easily.

gunrunnerjohn said:

Therein lies the problem. The fact that it's doing things that many users don't realize is why it bites people in the butt now and again! When I removed my files from my machine and "carefully" stored them in the cloud, that's when I knew it was no longer welcome at my place! Yes, if you have your head in the sand, in most situations your files probably are preserved. However, if you don't understand exactly what is going on, you can shoot yourself in the foot quite easily.

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Exactly! If you know how it works and what you're doing, it's totally reliable. If you don't, you can easily be in a mess of trouble.

TraderGary said:

Exactly! If you know how it works and what you're doing, it's totally reliable. If you don't, you can easily be in a mess of trouble.

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That kinda' runs totally contrary of the intent expressed that it should be usable by non-technical people. They're the vary people that would likely get confused by files disappearing into the ether all by themselves.

gunrunnerjohn said:

That kinda' runs totally contrary of the intent expressed that it should be usable by non-technical people. They're the vary people that would likely get confused by files disappearing into the ether all by themselves.

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Yes, I've often thought that a person should have to pass a basic intelligence test before they would even be allowed to purchase a computer.

TraderGary said:

Yes, I've often thought that a person should have to pass a basic intelligence test before they would even be allowed to purchase a computer.

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It's actually not hard to argue that point to be honest.

TraderGary said:

Yes, I've often thought that a person should have to pass a basic intelligence test before they would even be allowed to purchase a computer.

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Or have children!

glasskuter said:

Rather than going around in circles, I believe in starting at the beginning to be able to get a complete picture so we can try to get things in their proper perspective. (we can't see it like you can). I have a couple of direct basic questions about things you have probably already done.

1. I am assuming this is a laptop, correct? Is this her own personal device or is it school provided?
2. Does this teacher use a Microsoft account to sign in to this device? If so, please Right click on her Pictures folder, select properties, general tab.
Under location does the folder path for that folder indicate Onedrive?
3. Then do the same for her documents folder. What is the default location of that folder right now?
4. Exactly how did this teacher go about trying to move the documents folder in the first place?

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Thanks for your patience, and I appreciate the structured approach. Here's the information based on what I’ve gathered:

1. Device Info:
Yes, it’s a laptop running Windows 11, provided by the school. It has the school’s logo set as the desktop background for all users. The taskbar and search bar are left-aligned to resemble a Windows 10 layout.

2. Sign-in Method & Pictures Folder Location:
The setup is a hybrid environment with both Windows AD and Azure AD components. The teacher signs in using their work Microsoft account.
The current location of the Pictures folder is:
C:\Users\smithn
It does not appear to be redirected to OneDrive.

3. Documents Folder Location:
The Documents folder is also located at:
C:\Users\smithn
Again, no redirection to OneDrive is evident.

4. What Happened:
The teacher was at home on Friday evening, connected to their home Wi-Fi. An overnight update occurred. The next morning, upon logging in, the taskbar icons had shifted to the center, and the school logo background was missing—suggesting a temporary profile may have been loaded.
His desktop shortcut to the Documents folder was missing, so he attempted to locate or recreate it—by navigating through File Explorer and drag-and-dropping from Quick Access. It’s unclear exactly what he did, but he may have tried to move or recreate the folder directly from C:\Users, but from what we have established earlier, it is highly unlikely.
Someone advised him to restart the laptop. After rebooting, he logged in and was back on his normal school profile (with the logo background), but the Documents folder was now empty.

This is all based on what he described to me. Sorry for the delay—it took a while to get him into the ICT office as he’s been very busy. Thanks again for your help!

fgr1990 said:

The Documents folder is also located at:
C:\Users\smithn
Again, no redirection to OneDrive is evident.

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Did you verify this just by looking at the list of folders under C:\users\smithn or did you right click on the documents folder itself and look under the location tab?
Did you also login to Onedrive on the web using this users MS account to see if his files are there.

Sorry to keep bringing up Onedrive, but to my recollection we have not seen an instance where files disappeared from a local user account folder that was stored on the system drive(except when a user's actions caused it) but we have seen a number of instances where files disappeared when a user logging in with a MS account attempted to move the default location of one/all of his user folders and those folders were syncing to Onedrive and the user did it incorrectly..

It stands to reason that an institution with IT managed systems would have their provided devices syncing to Onedrive. If they didn't, surely there would be some other method in place for your teachers to backup their files.

If they got signed in with a temp profile due to a corruption that happened, noticed their files were missing, and then copied all their files from their user profile folder to the desktop of the temp profile, that would explain why they lost everything.

Temp profiles lose all data when signed out. However they would not have had their jump lists or quick access or pinned start menu items on a temp profile.

Very likely this could have been the case. Maybe something happened there....

It has been a long time since I have seen a temp profile issue happen though. I have not seen this happen personally in any place I have worked since windows 10. And it was rare in windows 7 as well.

glasskuter said:

Did you verify this just by looking at the list of folders under C:\users\smithn or did you right click on the documents folder itself and look under the location tab?
Did you also login to Onedrive on the web using this users MS account to see if his files are there.

Sorry to keep bringing up Onedrive, but to my recollection we have not seen an instance where files disappeared from a local user account folder that was stored on the system drive(except when a user's actions caused it) but we have seen a number of instances where files disappeared when a user logging in with a MS account attempted to move the default location of one/all of his user folders and those folders were syncing to Onedrive and the user did it incorrectly..

It stands to reason that an institution with IT managed systems would have their provided devices syncing to Onedrive. If they didn't, surely there would be some other method in place for your teachers to backup their files.

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Thanks for looking into this!

I went into C:\users\smithn and checked the location there.
We checked Onedrive folder and files aren't there.

Our users have OneDrive available and we ask them to save their work there.

Other folders are not synced to OD

andrew129260 said:

If they got signed in with a temp profile due to a corruption that happened, noticed their files were missing, and then copied all their files from their user profile folder to the desktop of the temp profile, that would explain why they lost everything.

Temp profiles lose all data when signed out. However they would not have had their jump lists or quick access or pinned start menu items on a temp profile.

Very likely this could have been the case. Maybe something happened there....

It has been a long time since I have seen a temp profile issue happen though. I have not seen this happen personally in any place I have worked since windows 10. And it was rare in windows 7 as well.

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I’m still piecing together exactly what went wrong, but one clear takeaway is that we need to reinforce saving directly to OneDrive. In Office apps it’s all too easy to pick “This PC” by accident, local and OneDrive files look almost identical so a quick reminder will help prevent future data gaps.


My suggestion is to include a short how-to section with extra emphasis up front, for example:

• Always choose OneDrive from the list of locations when you hit Save or Save As in Word, Excel or PowerPoint
• If a document ends up on your PC by mistake go to File > Save As and move it into your OneDrive folder
• Always glance at the path shown in the title bar or Save dialog, if it doesn’t say OneDrive it’s not online yet

This isn’t the most obvious UI so flagging these steps should cut down on confusion. What do you think?

I just thinking out loud here. System folder with files is moved, then security update and files disappear. Could the security have flagged the files as a threat? Could they be in quarantine?

Try

fgr1990 said:

Searching for specific files yields no results.

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If not activated - activate/toggle Hidden Files:


Then try this search tool:


...if you can't find anything - also taking into account all that you've tried before (no recovery was possible and no shadow copies either), they're removed/deleted for good.