Windows 11 -user is locked from Microsoft account and loses 30 years of data in a warning story that gives your hair on it
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- A redditor moves a huge plate of data from old disks to a new one
- They used OneDrive as a center in a poorly thought out strategy that temporarily left all data in the Microsoft cloud service
- When they came downloading the data, they were locked up from OneDrive and they cannot get a Microsoft support to tackle this problem
A warning story that is shared on Reddit, says the story of one Windows -PC owner who used OneDrive to save their data for 30 years and lost the party when their Microsoft Account was locked, without a clear way to gain access.
This is a filthy sounding perilous situation (Marked by Neowin) To say the least, with the loss of what is described as three decades of “irreplaceable photos and work” that were transferred to OneDrive as a temporary storage facility.
The idea the Redditor Was that they had to move that huge collection of files from several old discs where they were stored for a large new disk, and OneDrive was selected as the center in that migration trip.
So they have moved all the files of the old discs on Microsoft’s cloud storage service And prepared to transfer the data to the new disk when they encountered a huge stumbling block. The Redditor was suddenly excluded from their Microsoft account (and therefore OneDriveAnd all Microsoft Services).
Now this is of course not a sensible way to manage this data transfer (and I come back to sketch why in a time when you are not sure), but the point here is that the error happened, and the redditor cannot get joy of Microsoft in terms of trying to solve the problem.
In their Reddit post, who receives a lot of attention, they say: “Microsoft has suspended my account without warning, reason or a legitimate story. I have submitted the compliance form 18 times – eighteen – and every time I get an automated answer that leads nowhere. No human contact. Just real help.”
They continue: “This not only feels unethical, but also possible illegal, especially in the light of the laws for the protection of consumer protection. You can not only keep someone’s entire digital life hostages without the right process, no warning and no responsibility”, adding that Microsoft is a “Kafkaesque hole of business trade.”
Analysis: Microsoft has to do better
Okay, so first, very quickly – because I don’t want to work on the mistakes of the unfortunate Redditor – this is not a good way to continue with a drive migration.
When transferring a large plate of data such as this, you should never have a single failure point in the process. By which I mean to push all the data in the cloud, on OneDrive, and to have that as the only copy. That is clearly the core of the problem here, because as soon as the user was locked from OneDrive, they had no access to their data at all.
When performing such an operation, or as a general rule for data, you must always keep several copies. Usually that would be the original data on your device, a backup on a separate external drive at home (preferably two discs, in fact), and an off-site copy in a cloud storage box such as OneDrive. The point is that if you lose the original data, you can resort to, for example, the external drive, but if that has also gone to the Great Tech Grayard, you can somehow go to the second disk (or the cloud).
Anyway, you understand the point, but the redditor is in this way to do things, without a doubt that it was not good to trust OneRive as a temporary measure – but that was clearly not the case.
There are a number of problems with the scenario that is presented here, where Microsoft was not brought to the standards that a customer would rightly expect.
Why did this happen?
Firstly, there is the fact that the Microsoft account was easily locked without reporting or message that it was provided why. The OneDrive user can only guess why this prohibition has been established (and the obvious gamble is that some copyrighted material or other content that was contrary to Microsoft’s policy was marked in the uploaded files that would activate the account that is automatically locked). It is worth it to make it clear that we (of course) have no idea of the content of this data.
Secondly, with this happened, the most disturbing part here is the description of the Redditor about how they feel that they hit their heads against a brick wall in trying to talk to Microsoft’s support staff about how to solve this. After all, this is essentially their entire lives of data, and there should be a way to at least find out what the problem is – and to give the person who has locked up a chance to explain it and possibly gain access.
As far as we know, it can be a bug that caused this. But if nobody listens at Microsoft, nobody is likely to investigate. And if you use OneDrive as a cloud -back -up, it is indeed a frightening prospect indeed access to your data. (That’s why you have to find out the other Local Backups As an alternative, or indeed, another cloud service if you really wanted to push the boat ‘Data Redundancy’).
Hopefully the Redditor will eventually be able to talk to a Microsoft – support agent – a real person – to iron this out. In theory, all that data can still be somewhere on the Microsoft servers.
This incident took place at a time when Microsoft Pusht Windows 11 users, because you cannot install the operating system without it (well, you can use meshes, although the Company is busy eradicate Some of those fudges). Not to mention the pushing of OneDrive, Microsoft 365 and other services with advertisements in Windows, of course.
That broad ride here is an unfortunate background when you are considering another recent misstep that has recently been brought to light. That was the emphasized of one Potential problem with deleted Microsoft accounts (removed by the user, that is, which could lead to the loss of the key to the standard drive coding applied with new installations of Windows 11 24H2.
Again that annoying small (albeit the niche) scenario can lead to all the data on your disk that disappears in a black hole, to never be seen again. It is again a strange situation in which you could not end up a story at all in this case – and this, together with the terrible awkward state of the Redditor, his perilarability that Microsoft would clearly not have to inflict consumers.
We have contacted Microsoft for comment on this specific case and will update this story if we receive a response from the company.
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