Microsoft Says They Can Recover Files Deleted by Windows 10 October 2018 Update

Megalith

Megalith

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The head of the Windows Insider program sent out a tweet suggesting Microsoft has a way of restoring files that may have been deleted by the Windows 10 October 2018 update. Sadly, this story appears to exist for the sole purpose of highlighting Microsoft’s increasing incompetence: while Ms. Sarkar claims support has the “tools to get you back to a good state,” not a single support agent seems to know anything about it.

According to numerous people who called the support number, the support agents told them that the bug was still under investigation, they were not aware of any tools, and that they would have to wait until the investigation in the bug was finished. To confirm, I also called Microsoft support and was told the same thing.
 
dangerouseddy said:
well if the os deleted files it wasn't supposed to, then the os overwrote the sectors with the new os install you aren't getting your precious files back.
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+1
Pretty much what I was going to say. The profile shuffling ends up being done pretty early on in the update. Any files written afterward is going to clobber whatever was out there in those reclaimed blocks. That is why there has always been a big chance that your stuff is gone if you do anything at all after deleting stuff. And I don't know of a single tool that can guarantee 100% success.
 
jojo69 said:
well, if they are successful at retrieving people's files that will demonstrate with some certainty that they have copies of all your files
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I doubt that. Maybe there is a backup file or temp file that can be accessed. Who knows.

But I doubt all our files are being uploaded.
 
They might be able to recover the files that weren't overwritten during the update process. Of course, if one of the poor slobs that lost files also has auto defrag turned on because they are still on a spinning HD, recovery time may be limited.
 
Dead Parrot said:
They might be able to recover the files that weren't overwritten during the update process. Of course, if one of the poor slobs that lost files also has auto defrag turned on because they are still on a spinning HD, recovery time may be limited.
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Not limited to hard drives, Windows 10 runs trim on ssd's.
 
I guess I got really lucky. I upgraded and didn't lose my stuff. I thought it was only people who had stuff on the C drive, but I read somewhere that someone lost documents on their D drive. That said, I have almost everything backed up, so any losses would have been minimal.
 
dangerouseddy said:
well if the os deleted files it wasn't supposed to, then the os overwrote the sectors with the new os install you aren't getting your precious files back.
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.. unless it comes out that Microsoft was backing up all your files to OneDrive anyways.

I wouldn't doubt it.
 
if it was an SSD that was used the files are gone (TRIM would make sure of that) also system restore thats another topic i still come across systems where its default state is disabled and this will not help people who have more than 10GB of data if it is enabled as its norm not set to more then 10GB unless changed manually
 
Heh, supports my argument of them accidentally deleting the original data when cleaning up the telemetry cache.
 
The delay must be because they are making sure those tools will pass QA before releasing them !!
 
cyberguyz said:
+1
Pretty much what I was going to say. The profile shuffling ends up being done pretty early on in the update. Any files written afterward is going to clobber whatever was out there in those reclaimed blocks. That is why there has always been a big chance that your stuff is gone if you do anything at all after deleting stuff. And I don't know of a single tool that can guarantee 100% success.
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It's entirely possible an image of the directory is taken and turned into one giant blob and the blob is still out there just never restored due to some unpack error.

But I'm guessing and hoping for the best for those who lost their files.

Thank god I run backups.
 
likeman said:
if it was an SSD that was used the files are gone (TRIM would make sure of that) also system restore thats another topic i still come across systems where its default state is disabled and this will not help people who have more than 10GB of data if it is enabled as its norm not set to more then 10GB unless changed manually
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System restore affects registry/config/binaries only.
 
Sorry guys, I'm out of the loop. What files is windows 10 update deleting and how would I know?
 
Methadras said:
Sorry guys, I'm out of the loop. What files is windows 10 update deleting and how would I know?
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Stuff in the user\Documents folder.

If you had stuff in that folder before, but after updating it's empty, then the update deleted what was in there.
 
Delicieuxz said:
Stuff in the user\Documents folder.

If you had stuff in that folder before, but after updating it's empty, then the update deleted what was in there.
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Is that a 100% of the time issue or sporadically for some?
 
Methadras said:
Is that a 100% of the time issue or sporadically for some?
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It's only happened to some people, not everybody. However, the reports of the number of people it's happened to were growing until Microsoft pulled the update.
 
Anyone that puts important documents in user\Documents should have their stuff deleted. :D
 
"Microsoft Says They Can Recover Files Deleted by Windows 10 October 2018 Update"

but choose not to.

Instead introduce an amazing space saving file compression feature in the Spring 2019 Update: "Because of the tremendous feedback we received with our innovative disk space recapture process from the October 2018 update, this heartbreaking groundbreaking bug feature will now extend to all connected drives and folders. Never run out of drive space again! Store all your data in Microsoft OneDrive for (almost) free where we can better analyze and monitize it."
 
Issue seems to stem from If say you moved your user document folder to another drive (but not necessary for the bug to happen) when it does the upgrade seems the migrate feature sometimes fails to move the data and just deletes it instead sometimes

You can use system restore still or "previous files" tab need to manually create a snap shot

"""""
I use task schedule a to make it run the command every day so it restores "previous files" tab so you can see the files back again

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i was unaware of windows 10 not making "previous versions" snapshots like windows 7 did, i even only had 4 recovery points when checking ( no browsable snapshot which you could normally use with "shadow copy view")

so i have made a scheduled task that runs every day at say like 1pm (pick a time when PC is on, or you can set It to run at startup) run "wmic" and arguments as shadowcopy call create Volume='c:\'

do need to make sure that task actually runs and makes a snapshot (look at "shadow copy view" for new snapshot press refresh) make sure the task runs under SYSTEM user permission as that can run under any user and when your not logged in (you can pick that as well witch i did)

Make sure system Restore is actually turned on the system drive as I have seen some systems where its off by default

And make sure you have some sort of secondary backup even at least Windows history turned on to another drive
 
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DigitalGriffin said:
System restore affects registry/config/binaries only.
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Yes your correct(for windows 10 and maybe 8), in my last post above is what I did to restore previous files and file snapshots ( Windows 7 did have it enabled by Default)
 
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likeman said:
Issue seems to stem from If say you moved your user document folder to another drive (but not necessary for the bug to happen) when it does the upgrade seems the migrate feature sometimes fails to move the data and just deletes it instead sometimes
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My document directories (and possibly others) are on my D drive and it didn't happen. I guess it's possible I did it differently, since I don't believe I ever had my document folder on the CD drive. Whatever the case, i'm glad it didn't. I could have recovered almost everything from a backup, but it'd still be a PITA.


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nilepez said:
My document directories (and possibly others) are on my D drive and it didn't happen. I guess it's possible I did it differently, since I don't believe I ever had my document folder on the CD drive. Whatever the case, i'm glad it didn't. I could have recovered almost everything from a backup, but it'd still be a PITA.
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Seems like a rare bug, might be linked to the 10 day roll back delete feature upgrade timer that is supposed to happen when you do a upgrade, as they stated about that in the fixed feature upgrade version (the policy timer)

but ms is likey not going to really disclose what was happened just that they fixed it
 
Installing fresh currant windows 10 should be fine

for people doing it on automatic way I would recommend using win10 Pro (keys are less then £/$ 2-7) so you can set it to none targeted delay feature upgrades for 100 days and set normal updates to 15 days delay (up to you really) this will stop you been a gunny pig for testing mass feature upgrades and broken updates
 
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