Old Onedrive storage location on External HD causing problems with Windows apps on laptop
Hi Everyone, Until a few months ago, I used to work in an organisation, where I was given an office laptop linked to a Microsoft Onedrive account ("Official Onedrive"). I had set up a personal external HD (Per-HD1") to act as a storage location for this Onedrive account. Periodically, I would connect this Per-HD1 to my personal laptop, open the Official Onedrive, and it would sync my office data to the Per-HD1 in a sub-folder called "Sync-latest". I also had a personal laptop, an HP 2009 model, where I had built up, over the years, a sizeable inventory of personal documents. Other personal documents were saved on another external HD ("Per-HD2"). And lastly, I also used to have a personal Onedrive account since many years, which I used for storing some random news cuttings, etc, consuming less than 20% of the Onedrive allowance of 5GB. A few months ago, I left that organisation. At this point, (a) my office data was saved in Per-HD1 (b) my personal data was saved partly in the 2009 laptop, partly in my Per-HD2, and partly in my personal Onedrive. As I wanted to buy a new personal laptop and trade-in my old 2009 laptop, I copy-pasted my personal data from my old 2009 laptop to Per-HD1. I then bought the new personal laptop, loaded with MS Office 2021 Home & Student Edition, Windows 11, and simultaneously traded-in the old 2009 laptop to the seller, after formatting the hard disk. I then did the following: a) CUT-PASTED my personal data from Per-HD1 to my new personal laptop's C drive under "Documents" folder b) CUT-PASTED my last office data from the "Sync-latest" sub-folder in my Per-HD1 to my new laptop's C drive under "Documents" folder. Just to re-emphasise, the "Sync-latest" sub-folder on my Per-HD1, is the external hard drive location, where I used to sync my office data from my Official Onedrive. c) created a few more Word/Excel documents in my personal Onedrive. So now, my documents are spread out as follows: Some are in my personal Onedrive Some others are in my C drive under "Documents" Some others are in my Per-HD2 My Per-HD1, which does not contain any of my useful or relevant documents any more, but which is the source of the problem, now looks as shown below: CANNOT PUBLISH THE SCREENSHOT, LET ME KNOW HOW TO, SO THAT YOU GET A CLEARER IDEA OF THE PROBLEM The three folders shown in the red box above, have the following contents: 1. The "Sync-latest" folder has the following two (lowest level) sub-folders: (a) "Desktop" as shown below - which contains shortcuts to some personal documents (not from my old employment) which are located either in my personal onedrive, or in my Per-HD2, and whose shortcuts I created and sent them to the desktop of my personal laptop. CANNOT PUBLISH THE SCREENSHOT, LET ME KNOW HOW TO, SO THAT YOU GET A CLEARER IDEA OF THE PROBLEM and (b) "Screenshots" as shown below - which contains the screenshots that have been copy-pasted on this page, as shown below: CANNOT PUBLISH THE SCREENSHOT, LET ME KNOW HOW TO, SO THAT YOU GET A CLEARER IDEA OF THE PROBLEM As you can see, the "Sync-latest" folder on my Per-HD1, which used to earlier contain my synced office data from my Official Onedrive, and from where I had cut-pasted all my office data to my personal laptop's "Documents" folder, is still somehow "active" and contains the shortcuts that were created on my personal laptop (how??), as well as screenshots that I take from the screen snipper application on my personal laptop (how??) !!!! 2. The "OLD BACKUPS" folder contains my superceded office data 3. The "OneDrive Temp" folder looks as shown in the screenshot below: CANNOT PUBLISH THE SCREENSHOT, LET ME KNOW HOW TO, SO THAT YOU GET A CLEARER IDEA OF THE PROBLEM I noted that the above strangely numbered sub-folders were created at the time of the last syncing of my office data with Per-HD1 on the dates indicated. I recall running into some sync issues back then, but then was able to somehow (no idea how) ensure that all my office data was properly synced and available on Per-HD1, before I returned the office laptop. I have noted that deleting these sub-folders causes some unexpected problems, so restored them back from the Recycle Bin. So the PROBLEMS which require an urgent resolution are: 1. If I do not connect Per-HD1 to my personal laptop before starting it, OR if I delete the "Sync-latest" folder in Per-HD1, two major things happen: (i) each and every app on the home screen as shown in the screenshot below (in red boxes) disappears, but if I shut down the laptop, reconnect PerHD1, and then restart the laptop, these apps re-appear on the desktop and taskbar. CANNOT PUBLISH THE SCREENSHOT, LET ME KNOW HOW TO, SO THAT YOU GET A CLEARER IDEA OF THE PROBLEM (ii) none of the documents using MS office (Word, Excel, PPT, etc) can be opened, regardless of where they are stored - C drive, PerHD2, or personal Onedrive. NB: Non-MS Office documents, eg. PDF, wherever stored, can however be opened 2. If I delete the "OneDrive Temp" folder, some problem happens, whose details I have forgotten, and do not want to re-create the problem for fear of losing access to my data. In sum, as you can see, it looks like Per-HD1 has somehow got a "stranglehold" on my personal laptop, due to the fact that it used to be my Official Onedrive sync location. I need to, without losing any data, delink Per-HD1 from my personal laptop, otherwise I will have to forever carry Per-HD1 around with my laptop wherever I go. Just in case it is relevant to the issue, I had delinked my official Onedrive account from my new personal laptop, before giving my office laptop back to the organisation. And I had also delinked my old 2009 laptop from my personal Onedrive account. So now, my personal Onedrive account is linked only to my new personal laptop.Hardisk External Error in Windows 11
Hello guys, I have update my windows 10 OS to windows 11 OS a few day ago, I noticed my hardisk external wont work normally. It seem that the drive constantly insert and eject by it self. when I try to open device manager, it constantly refreshing (because hardware change detected). In file explorer it also constantly refresh and my external hard disk just pop in an few seconds later pop out. any one have some problem and maybe solution for this? thank you