One drive

[StayAGhost]

A month or so ago my work laptop was broken, and work said to use my laptop and one drive to connect to their servers
I downloaded one drive onto my laptop and definitely logged in with my work username and passwords
All my personal home documents uploaded onto the work drive ! Obviously I didn't want them on the work drive, so I deleted them from the work drive
Now I've tried to use my home documents (not via one drive), and I can't find them on the laptop
There loads of things on there that I need
I carnt even seem to find photos
I've removed one drive from the laptop, and restarted it a few times.
How do I persuade my laptop to give my access?!
I don't want to involve work IT, because it's personal stuff on there
Thanks

Cloud files random work stuff
No local files found

In excel random work stuff

No photo icon

It doesn't sound as if you're looking in your laptop's Recycle Bin but maybe let's try going to OneDrive. You don't need to go to the app, you need to open up an internet browser, go to www.office.com/ and then log in with your work account.

Once you've done that, go to OneDrive using this icon in the top left hand corner.

Ok I'm on the home page

Okay now if you click on the icon in the top left hand corner, it opens up this menu, choose OneDrive.

(I think I am about to hit my image upload quota for the day, by the way, so may not be able to post any more).

Once you are in OneDrive, you'll see a bunch of folders, one of which will be called Documents. That's the one that is syncing with the Documents folder on your laptop.

Right now, though, we're still looking for the missing files. On the left hand side, you should see options 'My files', 'Recent', 'Shared', and 'Recycle Bin'. You want that final option Recycle Bin. Scroll down through the list of files it will show you to see if you can see your personal files.

Ok
I've got my files ("This folder is empty "
Recent (random work stuff)
Shared (random work stuff)
Recycle (Your recycle bin is empty)

I carnt see a "documents" icon

Hmm okay, do you have an option down at the bottom of the screen called 'Check the second stage recycle bin'? Mine is empty but it's worth a look.

I saw that and it says recycle bin is empty

Thanks again tribpot
I do think if someone in work had been anything like as helpful as you, I wouldn't be in this mess

Okay so at this point, things are not looking great for your personal files. I think your best bet is to involve your work IT department, you followed their advice and it caused a load of personal documents to upload to the work OneDrive. You then deleted them without realising the impact of doing so. I think they should offer to try and help sort this out.

I wouldn't change any other settings on your personal laptop for now, so they can see how it's set up.

If you do want to save stuff without it uploading to the work OneDrive, you should be able to do that, e.g. in Word:
go to browse and it should let you choose another folder on the C drive.

If work don't want to help, I would take it to a computer shop or similar, again without changing anything for now, to see if they can unravel things there. I'm concerned that the OneDrive recycle bin is empty because you uninstalled the OneDrive app but the files should still be recoverable.

I think what work intended you to do was go into OneDrive in an internet browser window, as you just have, and then work on any files you needed there - if you click on one of your shared documents, it should open up in the online version of Word or Excel. However, I don't think it was reasonable for them to expect you to know that.

SHIT
SHIT
I've hit sync thinking I would be able to STOP sync
It's STARTED sync
I carnt see how to stop it

Bastard one file

What I'd say to your IT department, btw, is:

You advised me to use OneDrive to access files from my own laptop whilst the work one was broken. I installed the OneDrive app on my laptop and logged into it using my work credentials.

The OneDrive app automatically backs up local folders like Documents and Desktop, as explained here. This meant my personal documents were uploaded to the work OneDrive without me realising.

Once I had discovered what happened, I deleted the files from my work OneDrive and this caused the files to delete from my personal laptop as well. I can't find these files now, either in my laptop's Recycle Bin or the OneDrive Recycle Bin.

Yes, it does look like my personal files are gone
How do I at least stop one file on my laptop please?

I don't think at this stage syncing will do any harm, but you can pause it - if you can see a OneDrive icon in the bottom right corner of your screen, right click on it. If you can't see it, you can probably see an icon that looks like a upwards arrow or a little hat. Click on that and it should open up a bunch of icons, including a blue cloud for OneDrive. Right click that and then click on the cog icon, and you should see an option to pause syncing.

Can I block one file on my laptop?

At this stage, I think it might do more harm than good but you can log out of OneDrive - follow the instructions above and then when you can see the OneDrive app like in my screenshot at 11:40, choose the page that says 'Account' and you'll see an option 'Unlink this PC'.

If you can remember the data or as close as possible to the data of when you deleted the files your IT team may be able to pull the back up files if they still have them. Dependent on their retention policy they may get very regularly deleted so this might not be a viable option but it's worth asking.

Sorry that should be remember the DATE of when you deleted

Yay
I think I've disabled it
Will I still be able to use teams?

Just thought will DD have access to the home work?

Yes, you can still use Teams although I would use that in the browser as well actually - when you were in office.com and looking at that left hand menu (see screenshot at 12:12) one of the options there is Teams.

For DD's homework, can you see that in the Documents folder on your laptop?

It's still uploading to bastard one file

Honestly next time laptop breaks, I'll just take annual leave!!!