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JohnrC123's avatar
JohnrC123
Copper Contributor
Aug 15, 2018

Is OneDrive Deleting Newer Files After Backup Restore?

After a BSOD caused by an unsuccessful System Restore, and no way to get back into Win 10, I purchased a new drive and restored a backup image from a couple of weeks ago.   In those couple of weeks...
OneDrive for Business
Rob Nicholson's avatar
Rob Nicholson
Brass Contributor
Sep 26, 2019

JohnrC123 glad to read your post, in a weird way, as I've ranted and complained about this design flaw for several years now. It is IMO a huge flaw in OneDrive and I'm a little bit amazed that it's not more prevalent as the practise of restoring an image of computer or a snapshot isn't exactly unusual.

 

Why would anyone in their right minds want OneDrive to (sort of) re-synchronised back to the restored image? 

 

It's an algorithmic design flaw in OneDrive in the area of tracking the changes made to a file system. All I know is that Dropbox and Google Drive do not suffer from the same flaw and can only assume that they do it "better". When you restore an image or VM snapshot back in time, these two systems synchronise the restored copy to the current time - which is what you pretty much what people want 99.99% of the time. 

 

I hit your post whilst trying to get more ammunition to my post yesterday when the same thing happened AGAIN:

 

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_onedrivefb-mso_win10-mso_o365b/when-is-microsoft-going-to-fix-onedrive-when-a/45f8e646-7421-4249-9272-03e8f255c28f 

Rob Nicholson's avatar
Rob Nicholson
Brass Contributor
Sep 26, 2019
BTW - if you're using the version of OneDrive that comes with Office 365, there is a feature on there to undo all the bad changes made by OneDrive when restoring an older image. The feature is there in case of mass encryption by a virus like WannaCry or you accidentally made a huge **bleep**-up yourself. You can restore OneDrive back to a point in time - you'll spot the bad changes as they will all have been made at the same time.