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Where are my files from Windows 11? (swg-empire.de)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de to c/techsupport@lemmy.world

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I migrated my wife's PC after a forceful Windows 11 update to Linux. I made a backup of her files by doing an rsync of almost the complete C: drive onto an external drive formatted with exFAT. This was a grave mistake.

After the Linux installation we noticed that several files were missing and older files were back. My current guess is that I was somehow copying from an old snapshot instead of the current state.

I rsynced everything except for the Windows folder. Does anyone know if there is any chance of getting our filea back? Amd what actually happened?

Edit: After several weeks I finally found the answer. There are two drives in the laptop. But Linux didn't see the NVME drive because it does not support "RST with Optane". As soon as I switched the SATA mode over to AHCI I could see the system drive with the lost files.

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[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 1 points 2 months ago (6 children)

The files were in the Documents folder and on the Desktop. The Documents folder is completely missing and the Desktop is very empty and contains links to already uninstalled programs. I also copied the Firefox profile from c:\Users\MyWifesName\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla. And it too looks like it's about a year or two old.

[–] Shadow@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Check inside the OneDrive folder.

Could you have copied the wrong disk or something? Did you do the copy in windows, or Linux?

Try using something like ncdu / qdirstat to see if you can find any large folders buried elsewhere on the disk.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 1 points 2 months ago (3 children)

In Linux. I just did an rsync -avP /source /target.

The OneDrive folder is empty except for a desktop.ini file.

[–] samwwwblack@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

You probably want to check your wife's Onedrive online with a web browser as by default Windows doesn't keep files locally in Documents/Desktop/Pictures etc.

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