Vent: My August 12th started with a forced Windows update that nuked my entire Photo Library

I booted up my PC last Thursday morning and got hit with a 2 hour update that wiped out 3 years of family photos from my backup drive somehow. Spent the whole week rebuilding folders from cloud scraps and old emails. Anyone else had an update straight up delete their personal files without warning?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_wendy1d ago

Oh man, 'nuked my entire Photo Library' is EXACTLY what happened to me last year with a Windows update. It completely wiped my Documents folder, photos included. I learned the hard way to ALWAYS keep a separate external hard drive unplugged from the computer just for backups. Also check your C: drive for a hidden folder called 'Windows.old' - that's where they stash your old files sometimes. And for the love of God, turn off automatic updates in your settings until you manually approve them. My whole family's vacation photos from 2019 are still gone because I trusted the update.

park.miles1d ago

Is there a way to sue Microsoft for this kind of stuff?

val_bailey666h agoMost Upvoted

Start digging through your Microsoft account online. I found out the hard way that if you sync any folders to OneDrive, the update can actually delete files from the cloud too, not just your local drive. @park.miles should check the OneDrive recycle bin on the web, because stuff there stays for 30 days even after it vanishes from your computer. Also look in the "Recently Deleted" album in the actual Photos website, not the app. I recovered a bunch of tax documents that way last year after a botched Windows 11 upgrade.