Data Loss - One Drive and File History

[InspectHerGadget]

The good news is I sold my SP2 today and got a good price for it.

I saved my MYOB accounting to OneDrive checked the path and that, all good. Same for Outlook.

All good. Then handed it over after starting the reset process which wipes everything.

Except. I saved it to OneDrive in my User Profile but I just tested it and it doesn't sync to the cloud for some reason. My fault I guess I should have checked OneDrive on the web to see if they were there, of course they're not.

Phew, fortunately I use File History!

Except MYOB is in the public folders which every back up program covers right? Not File History.

Result. Probably a weeks work to cobble together from my bank statements One Note and my Calendar to go back to the last one actually saved on OneDrive on September 8th.

Lessons, File History is a useless piece of shit.

OneDrive works but not in the way you might think. It looks like I chose a static folder maybe. I don't know.

I'll have to do the investigation later. I've work to do.

The irony was the past month I was saving time by using the SP2 to enter all my jobs as I did each one now during the day. Instead I have a highly difficult and unpleasant task ahead of me that will take days to complete in my spare time in addition to my normal work load.

 

[kwright]

Not sure what happened but I've done the same thing twice when trading in an 8 machine. The files are all there when I sign in using my MS account. I've also enjoyed replicating the same software on my new machines using that option when I sign in to a new machine for the first time.

 

[johnj2803]

I almost got into trouble for trusting that one drive sync was working in my windows tablet. Fortunately I have one drive installed in all 2 other machines that I have and noticed the not syncing problem for there.

The problem for me was I saved a folder from a thumb drive that had deep directories. Like folder within a folder to infinity kind of thing, and there were file names that were too long.

That caused the error for me.

But yeah lesson learned. Check the back up first.

 

[Wayne Orwig]

I almost got bitten by the Cloud...
I just got a new Android phone. I have a sync program that I run on my phone to sync OneDrive to phone storage. I have OneDrive synced to my work PC, my home laptop, and my Surface. Make a change on any device, it gets copied to all others. Great.
So I am at work with my new phone. I have a few minutes, so I activate my OneDrive sync app to get the files to my phone. A few minutes later, I realize that the app is doing exactly what I told it to do, and making OneDrive look exactly like my BLANK phone directory.

OneDrive is now blank. And my work PC and home laptop are quickly also being deleted by the OneDrive sync on them.
Everything gone, as instructed, everywhere.

Luckily my Surface was OFF and not synced. (plus my home laptop has backups) I walked out of WiFi range with the surface and saved a copy of everything before going back online. My home backup as of this morning also now has a "DAY-1" through "DAY-7" rotating scheme.
(SyncbackSE is awesome)

 

[InspectHerGadget]

I almost got bitten by the Cloud...
I just got a new Android phone. I have a sync program that I run on my phone to sync OneDrive to phone storage. I have OneDrive synced to my work PC, my home laptop, and my Surface. Make a change on any device, it gets copied to all others. Great.
So I am at work with my new phone. I have a few minutes, so I activate my OneDrive sync app to get the files to my phone. A few minutes later, I realize that the app is doing exactly what I told it to do, and making OneDrive look exactly like my BLANK phone directory.

OneDrive is now blank. And my work PC and home laptop are quickly also being deleted by the OneDrive sync on them.
Everything gone, as instructed, everywhere.

Luckily my Surface was OFF and not synced. (plus my home laptop has backups) I walked out of WiFi range with the surface and saved a copy of everything before going back online. My home backup as of this morning also now has a "DAY-1" through "DAY-7" rotating scheme.
(SyncbackSE is awesome)

Interesting.

I'd say it is an Android feature.

You probably should have used Google Drive!

It is probably an Android developer with a wicked sense of humour or under orders from the Men in Black.

Either Google Drive will win one day or Windows phone.

 

[Wayne Orwig]

Interesting.

I'd say it is an Android feature.
You probably should have used Google Drive!
It is probably an Android developer with a wicked sense of humour or under orders from the Men in Black.
Either Google Drive will win one day or Windows phone.

No, it is the way I set up the sync software. It is doing exactly what I want by keeping everything in sync. But that also means that my mistakes are synced everywhere, quickly.
Multiple backups are a good thing.
I used to use Google Drive. But once I switched to OneDrive, I switched everything possible away from Google. I like OneDrive and Outlook.com much better. Don't ask me why though, the reasons are vague. Google drive does the job. I guess OneDrive just integrates with my tablet/laptops better. The only 'glitch' with OneDrive is needing a third party app to sync it to my Android phone.

 

[Telstar1948]

No, it is the way I set up the sync software. It is doing exactly what I want by keeping everything in sync. But that also means that my mistakes are synced everywhere, quickly.
Multiple backups are a good thing.
I used to use Google Drive. But once I switched to OneDrive, I switched everything possible away from Google. I like OneDrive and Outlook.com much better. Don't ask me why though, the reasons are vague. Google drive does the job. I guess OneDrive just integrates with my tablet/laptops better. The only 'glitch' with OneDrive is needing a third party app to sync it to my Android phone.

I'm thinking about an Android phone in place of my Nokia. I only have my SP3; I have everything set up on OneDrive at present. What do your recommend to sync things between an Android phone and the SP3? I've read different ideas from different people, but somehow I'm not getting a clear process in my head for accomplishing this in the simplest, easiest way. Thanks.

 

[GreyFox7]

IMO cross platform syncing is a nice idea that's probably not practical from a reliability perspective. There's no way to test all the permutations and all it takes is one incompatibility to mess up your data. Yeah, its likely to work some, maybe even most, of the time with caveats but then you get nicked or worse. It's like wearing a sign that says kick me.

Even on a smaller scale problems crop up. like with mail clients using Exchange Active Sync... I know lots of people using it with various clients. I also know people have experienced more corruption and weird issues using it than not. It's not a matter of if there will be an issue, it's just a matter of when.

 

[InspectHerGadget]

IMO cross platform syncing is a nice idea that's probably not practical from a reliability perspective. There's no way to test all the permutations and all it takes is one incompatibility to mess up your data. Yeah, its likely to work some, maybe even most, of the time with caveats but then you get nicked or worse. It's like wearing a sign that says kick me.

Even on a smaller scale problems crop up. like with mail clients using Exchange Active Sync... I know lots of people using it with various clients. I also know people have experienced more corruption and weird issues using it than not. It's not a matter of if there will be an issue, it's just a matter of when.

I agree.

If you add in the 'dirty pool' factor where each manufacturer lays fresh, moist dog turds (bull mastiff) for people to step in barefoot, if attempting to use another bit of 'foreign' software then, it just isn't worth it.

I mean crap happens, but they just make sure it does.

 

[Telstar1948]

I've experienced some of what you all are saying in that I migrated from Apple to Microsoft; however, I really didn't have any difficulty syncing between the two (I think Apple does a good job in this area all things considered). Then when I left all iProducts it wasn't an issue of course. Now though, for my needs I'm thinking a Note 3 will suit me better than my Nokia - that's what prompted my question about syncing between my SP3 and an Android phone.

Given what you've said above, are there ways you know of to sync calendar, contacts, email (I realize to sync browser info I'd have to run Chrome on both the phone and SP3) between the SP3 and an Android phone? I know there are apps to get the information from my SP3 onto an Android phone, but I'm really interested in knowing the way(s), if any, to keep that information synced. Using OneDrive I'll be able to readily keep files available on both, which is necessary, but if you know anything about syncing the ordinary stuff like calendar, contact & email, please pass it on. Thanks.

 

[johnj2803]

I've experienced some of what you all are saying in that I migrated from Apple to Microsoft; however, I really didn't have any difficulty syncing between the two (I think Apple does a good job in this area all things considered). Then when I left all iProducts it wasn't an issue of course. Now though, for my needs I'm thinking a Note 3 will suit me better than my Nokia - that's what prompted my question about syncing between my SP3 and an Android phone.

Given what you've said above, are there ways you know of to sync calendar, contacts, email (I realize to sync browser info I'd have to run Chrome on both the phone and SP3) between the SP3 and an Android phone? I know there are apps to get the information from my SP3 onto an Android phone, but I'm really interested in knowing the way(s), if any, to keep that information synced. Using OneDrive I'll be able to readily keep files available on both, which is necessary, but if you know anything about syncing the ordinary stuff like calendar, contact & email, please pass it on. Thanks.

I have been using an android phone (note 4 now) the and a Windows hybrid (dell venue 11 pro formerly a surface 3) and calendar and contact sync and even email has been seamless for me. I use Google services for all of them. The only Microsoft service I really use is one note and one drive. Both of which work very well in android and Windows.

For photo back up I have multiple services. I use Dropbox, Google plus and recently onedrive. It is always prudent to have multiple back ups. This does not include the file imports I do to my desktops.

 

[Wayne Orwig]

I'm thinking about an Android phone in place of my Nokia. I only have my SP3; I have everything set up on OneDrive at present. What do your recommend to sync things between an Android phone and the SP3? I've read different ideas from different people, but somehow I'm not getting a clear process in my head for accomplishing this in the simplest, easiest way. Thanks.

I use an app on the phone called FolderSync. It can sync a number of different cloud services to the memory on the phone. I have it set to sync documents every 6 hours, only over WiFi, which is usually good enough for me. Or I can manually sync if I know things have changed. I have it set to instantly sync photos.
OneNote on the Samsung Note 4 works well with the stylus BTW.