Forum Discussion
OneDrive Basics
I'm wondering if someone could help me determine what went wrong. I have a new laptop ("New Laptop") and the goal was to migrate all my files (documents, pictures, etc) from the old laptop ("Old Laptop") to New Laptop. So I created a Microsoft OneDrive account and called it [olduserlaptop]@hotmail.com. I then uploaded everything from Old Laptop onto Onedrive, then logged into New Laptop, signed in under the same account, and downloaded everything. I came as a Zip file onto New Laptop and I extracted it. So far so good, right? Well when I look at the new laptop and the extracted files, the only thing that was there was the folders and directories - NO ACTUAL FILES. Does this make sense to anyone? If so, can someone explain? While I don't Old Laptop immediately available, I can get to it and access the old files but to me I shouldn't have to do this.
Thanks in advance for any help.
2 Replies
Thanks. I will try that. It's an older Windows 10 so I expect it will have its own problems, but I still cannot figure out why tf it didn't work. It should not be that complicated.
Since you still have access to the old laptop, I would recommend installing the OneDrive desktop app and allowing it to sync your files directly.
There is no need to create a separate account just to transfer or synchronize your files. Simply sign in to OneDrive with the same Microsoft account on both devices.
Place the files in folders that OneDrive is configured to back up and synchronize, such as:
- Desktop
- Documents
- Pictures
Wait until OneDrive shows that synchronization has completed successfully. Then install and sign in to OneDrive on the new laptop using the same account, and your files should appear automatically.
I would also suggest checking OneDrive on the web to confirm whether the files were actually uploaded. If you only see the folder structure and not the files themselves, the original upload or sync process may not have completed successfully.
