reinstalling Win 8.1 and OneDrive data from local backup

AltmanTC

New Member
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I have a laptop with Windows 8.1 installed. A lot of my files are synchronized to OneDrive. I want to reformat and reinstall Windows but I want to restore all the OneDrive files from a local backup instead of redownloading them all from the OneDrive files on the Internet. Does anyone know if there would be an issue with copying all the files back into the OneDrive folder after reformatting but before resynchronizing the files with OneDrive online? I was hoping OneDrive would notice that the files are the same as the ones online and would not try to upload them again. However, I ran into an issue with the past where I tried to manually copy files back to the OneDrive folder and then it started uploading them all to the cloud again but this time with the PC name in the folder name. Apparently it thought the files were modified both online and on the PC. It was a mess. Has anyone else tried this before?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro x64
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP EliteBook 8760w
I've been wondering the same recently. I have 300GB or so in OneDrive that I don't want to have to download every time i reformat. Hopefully someone has something on this.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Pro x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Self build (Desktop) / Dell (Laptop)
    CPU
    Intel Core i5 4690k (Desktop) / Intel Core i7 5500u (Laptop)
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte Z97 (Desktop) / Dell (Laptop)
    Memory
    8GB DDR3 (Desktop) / 16GB DDR3L (laptop)
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 (Desktop) / AMD R7 M270 (Laptop)
    Sound Card
    Onboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP Pavilion 27bw
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080 (Desktop) / 3840x2160 (Laptop)
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 850 EVO 120GB
    WD Black 500GB
    WD Blue 1TB
    (Desktop)
    Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB (Laptop)
    PSU
    Corsair 750w
    Case
    Ultra atx
    Cooling
    Stock heatsink
    Keyboard
    Razer Black Widow
    Mouse
    Roccat Kone XTD
    Internet Speed
    250Mbps Down / 20Mbps Up
    Browser
    Chrome
    Antivirus
    ESET
Well, here is what Microsoft said when I talked to someone on their online chat website. I ended up taking their suggestion and let it download from OneDrive instead of restoring from a local backup. My computer has been running for at least 1.5 days and it's only at 40% download completion. At this rate hopefully it'll be done by Saturday or Sunday. LOL

Dear Jeff,
Hello Jeff. This is Mark, one of the answer tech from Microsoft. The one that you've talked about the backing up of OneDrive files.
As you mentioned that you already back up the OneDrive folder but you're just thinking not to redownload it after reinstall the Windows 8.1.
What I can recommend you is to just logged in your OneDrive account then the files from OneDrive cloud will automatically sync on your computer. I know that it will take a while but that's is the best way. So that, you may not experience any issue just like what you said that it messed up.
If you have any questions or any concern, just feel free to contact us back and we will be happy to assist you.
This is your reference number for this session: 1291026485

Thanks again for choosing Answer Desk. We're here if you need us.
The Microsoft Answer Desk team
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro x64
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP EliteBook 8760w
Well, here is what Microsoft said when I talked to someone on their online chat website. I ended up taking their suggestion and let it download from OneDrive instead of restoring from a local backup. My computer has been running for at least 1.5 days and it's only at 40% download completion. At this rate hopefully it'll be done by Saturday or Sunday. LOL

Dear Jeff,
Hello Jeff. This is Mark, one of the answer tech from Microsoft. The one that you've talked about the backing up of OneDrive files.
As you mentioned that you already back up the OneDrive folder but you're just thinking not to redownload it after reinstall the Windows 8.1.
What I can recommend you is to just logged in your OneDrive account then the files from OneDrive cloud will automatically sync on your computer. I know that it will take a while but that's is the best way. So that, you may not experience any issue just like what you said that it messed up.
If you have any questions or any concern, just feel free to contact us back and we will be happy to assist you.
This is your reference number for this session: 1291026485

Thanks again for choosing Answer Desk. We're here if you need us.
The Microsoft Answer Desk team

First off I don't use one drive. but I have an idea that might work. Maybe a sync program like Good Sync could save the situation I say this as I use it and it reconizes all the files and folder on both drives and then would only restore the files and folders that are missing hopefully at the same time marking the files as synced to One Drive at the same time?

This thread, to me show that One Drive, is not actually ready for prime time. Cloud Back up programs such as Carbonite do this automatically
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro MC
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus G75VW / Z97 Pro
    CPU
    Intel Core i7-3610QM / I7-4790K
    Motherboard
    Z97 Pro
    Memory
    16 GB Hyundai HTM315156CFR8C-PB PC3-12800
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M (GF114M)
    Sound Card
    VIA 6.0.10.1600
    Screen Resolution
    1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 850 Pro 256, Samsung 850 Pro 1TB
    Internet Speed
    30 down 3 up
    Browser
    Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    NIS and Malwarebytes
<SNIP>
This thread, to me show that One Drive, is not actually ready for prime time. Cloud Back up programs such as Carbonite do this automatically

Yeah, that's my thinking as well. Re-downloading hundreds of Gigabytes when you have local copies is ludicrous.

Maybe they can get away with it with users who only have a few Gigabytes, but when it's hundreds of Gigabytes or more, OneDrive really needs to be bulletproof and extremely well thought out from every single angle. Half measures isn't going to cut it.

I listened to one of the speeches at Ignite about OneDrive Sync Capabilities and although it was targeted towards OneDrive for Business, the impression I got was that they hadn't really thought the OneDrive sync engine through at all from an engineering perspective. In the latter part of the video, the speaker was receiving some good questions from the audience, but if you ignored his charisma and listened to his actual words, he was struggling and there were a lot of unanswered questions where he evaded them politician style. They've got a way to go yet I think and I really do hope that they go back through those questions that were asked and take them on board with their unified sync engine.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8 64-bit
I have found this the case, any changes seen to the files, and the whole file is re uploaded

If you are planning on upgrading to win 10 when it comes out, try and use just the placeholders features for 8.1 after a re install and only downloading/making local what you need
When you upgrade to win 10, it will ask you to re download them all again (as onedrive has changed in 10)

That was my experience in upgrading 8 to 10, it wants you to delete all local copies and re download from onedrive
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Inspiron 3521
    CPU
    i5
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD Radeon
    Browser
    IE
I was probably going to reformat when 10 comes out anyway. However, if you have to redownload all the OneDrive files when upgrading over top of 8 that really sucks.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro x64
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP EliteBook 8760w
I use File History to another drive and it saves all changes to OneDrive too. In my case it saves them to F:\FileHistory\Clifford\TOWER-PC (4)\Data\C\Users\Clifford\OneDrive
Image 1.png
All you then have to do before formatting is manually run File History, and then restore all your files(not just OneDrive) from it. The tools are there without 3rd party software.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Update Pro in Hyper-V/Windows 10 Pro 64 bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Cliff's Black & Blue Wonder
    CPU
    Intel Core i9-9900K
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero
    Memory
    32 GB Quad Kit, G.Skill Trident Z RGB Series schwarz, DDR4-3866, 18-19-19-39-2T
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS GeForce RTX 3090 ROG Strix O24G, 24576 MB GDDR6X
    Sound Card
    (1) HD Webcam C270 (2) NVIDIA High Definition Audio (3) Realtek High Definition Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    BenQ BL2711U(4K) and a hp 27vx(1080p)
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080 x 32 bits (4294967296 colors) @ 60 Hz
    Hard Drives
    C: Samsung 960 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD
    E: & O: Libraries & OneDrive-> Samsung 850 EVO 1TB
    D: Hyper-V VM's -> Samsung PM951 Client M.2 512Gb SSD
    G: System Images -> HDD Seagate Barracuda 2TB
    PSU
    Corsair HX1000i High Performance ATX Power Supply 80+ Platinum
    Case
    hanteks Enthoo Pro TG
    Cooling
    Thermaltake Floe Riing RGB TT Premium-Edition 360mm and 3 Corsair blue LED fans
    Keyboard
    Trust GTX THURA
    Mouse
    Trust GTX 148
    Internet Speed
    25+/5+ (+usually faster)
    Browser
    Edge; Chrome; IE11
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender of course & Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit as a
    Other Info
    Router: FRITZ!Box 7590 AX V2
    Sound system: SHARP HT-SBW460 Dolby Atmos Soundbar
    Webcam: Logitech BRIO ULTRA HD PRO WEBCAM 4K webcam with HDR
<SNIP>
This thread, to me show that One Drive, is not actually ready for prime time. Cloud Back up programs such as Carbonite do this automatically

Yeah, that's my thinking as well. Re-downloading hundreds of Gigabytes when you have local copies is ludicrous.

Maybe they can get away with it with users who only have a few Gigabytes, but when it's hundreds of Gigabytes or more, OneDrive really needs to be bulletproof and extremely well thought out from every single angle. Half measures isn't going to cut it.

I listened to one of the speeches at Ignite about OneDrive Sync Capabilities and although it was targeted towards OneDrive for Business, the impression I got was that they hadn't really thought the OneDrive sync engine through at all from an engineering perspective. In the latter part of the video, the speaker was receiving some good questions from the audience, but if you ignored his charisma and listened to his actual words, he was struggling and there were a lot of unanswered questions where he evaded them politician style. They've got a way to go yet I think and I really do hope that they go back through those questions that were asked and take them on board with their unified sync engine.

:ditto:
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro MC
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus G75VW / Z97 Pro
    CPU
    Intel Core i7-3610QM / I7-4790K
    Motherboard
    Z97 Pro
    Memory
    16 GB Hyundai HTM315156CFR8C-PB PC3-12800
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M (GF114M)
    Sound Card
    VIA 6.0.10.1600
    Screen Resolution
    1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 850 Pro 256, Samsung 850 Pro 1TB
    Internet Speed
    30 down 3 up
    Browser
    Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    NIS and Malwarebytes
I got another response from Microsoft. I sent them a link to this forum thread and that is the link they are referring to in their response.


Dear Jeff,

Hello Jeff. How are you today? I hope you are doing fine. I do understand
what you're experiencing right now. I visited the link that you included on
your email. I know that the downloading of the files may take a while. As what
my colleague said that there's no way that the OneDrive will recognize the
local back up of the files.

All we have to do is just to redownload and sync to computer. Because if we
use the local back up of OneDrive, your files may get duplicate once you logged
in your OneDrive to your computer. Just to let you know that it really take a
while because of the size of the files on your OneDrive and it depends on the
Internet connection that you have.

I hope you understand Jeff and I'm so sorry for the trouble. Have a nice
day!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro x64
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP EliteBook 8760w
Thanks for that information

I think in the future when I need to upgrade/re install I am going to abandon onedrive for day to day use (just use it for backup purposes)

Really wish these tech companies would understand that not everyone has super fast/unlimited broadband, or even does not want to re download large amounts of data like this, when the data is already stored locally on a backup
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Inspiron 3521
    CPU
    i5
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD Radeon
    Browser
    IE
Really wish these tech companies would understand that not everyone has super fast/unlimited broadband, or even does not want to re download large amounts of data like this, when the data is already stored locally on a backup

I do have a really fast connection (FiOS 50/50 with the Quantum router) and it still took about 3 days and nights of downloading for it to finish. The other issue was a few files never uploaded to OneDrive because the file names weren't considered valid by OneDrive even though they were considered valid in Windows 8.1. To take care of that I waited for the OneDrive download to finish. Then I used SyncBack to copy any missing files back to the OneDrive folder using a pattern that checked to see if the file existed in the backup copy but not in the OneDrive folder.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro x64
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP EliteBook 8760w
Are you on Win 8 or Win 8.1?

With 8.1 you don't need to download everything in one go, all files are shown in explorer so just download what you want as you need them

With 8.0 and Win 10, to see them in explorer you do need to download them all

Wont mention my speed as its embarrassing, but when I was uploaded my photos (around 7GB), it took a couple of weeks, downloading this amount would take me 3 days or so :(
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Inspiron 3521
    CPU
    i5
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD Radeon
    Browser
    IE
I have Windows 8.1 but I was hesitant to try to run any of my apps that access the folders on my OneDrive before everything downloaded to a local copy. From what you're saying it sounds like it might've worked but would've been really slow since it would need to access the online version of the files instead of the local copy until everything redownloaded. Basically how I have it setup is I moved the four Windows folders Documents, Photos, Videos, and Music to OneDrive so whenever I use any software that accesses any of those Windows folders it automatically uploads any changes to OneDrive. Therefore I was hesistant to load iTunes, for example, until it finished downloading to an offline copy because I didn't want my library to get corrupted or start saying a bunch of my music was missing. Now I'm curious to know what would've happened if I would've just kept the files in online mode and tried running iTunes. Maybe I'll try running iTunes on my Windows 10 beta computer with OneDrive set to online mode and see if it opens and how long it takes.

I'm curious to see what changes are in OneDrive in the Windows 10 RTM compared to OneDrive in Windows 8.1.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro x64
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP EliteBook 8760w
Some apps don't work properly, think Adobe software is one of them (due to timing out as it takes a while to download then open)

what it should do (I have only used this for documents so know it works here)
you select the file you want to work on (could be offline or online only it doesn't matter)
If the file is offline already, just works as normal, open file, modify and then changes get synced back to onedrive
If the file is online only, it will download it first to create a local synced copy, then open the local copy and you edit as above
With fast BB you don't notice it doing it, its just downloads first if needed

I have also used this with photos, find photo in onedrive and select to edit it, if it exists locally it just opens for editing, if it is only on onedrive it downloads it then opens for editing (both ways it keeps in sync with the online version)

Music/Videos I have not tried

With Win 10 this has been removed
If you want to see your onedrive files on your PC, then you have to download them all, so you cant use the above in win 10, if you want to try iTunes in 10, you will have to download all your music
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Inspiron 3521
    CPU
    i5
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD Radeon
    Browser
    IE
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