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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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[–] garrett@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

For what it's worth, you are supposed to be able to access documents stored in OneDrive in Linux. (I haven't tried it myself; I'm just aware of it.)

Basically: Go to GNOME's settings, then select online accounts, and sign into OneDrive.

Here the same instructions with lots of details and screenshots: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/04/set-up-onedrive-file-access-in-ubuntu (Nothing in that link is Ubuntu specific. This applies to other distros too, like Fedora, Debian, Arch, Mint, etc. — as long as you have GNOME 46.)

Other desktops have to use various other options, but aren't natively integrated: https://linuxstans.com/microsoft-onedrive-on-linux/

Of course, once you have access to files like this, you'll probably want to copy them locally and back them up yourself.

(I suspect Microsoft was trying to make it so people don't lose their files, ironically, by handling document storage themselves? It's still absurd that they do this so aggressively.)

My favorite backup software is Pika. It's powered by Borg, has a friendly UI, and supports both local (including USB drives) and remote locations. https://flathub.org/apps/org.gnome.World.PikaBackup

Deja Dup is also good and uses Duplicity behind the scenes. https://flathub.org/apps/org.gnome.DejaDup

There are a ton of other backup solutions too, including Vorta (another UI for Borg) and a bunch of command line tools, like rclone, rsync, etc.