One drive has moved & corrupted personal files making them inaccessable

Jason Pike 0 Reputation points
2026-07-24T09:26:28.6866667+00:00

I had plenty of files in my Documents folder. Next time I booted my system they were all gone. I took a look at my Onedrive contents, and they were all moved to the root drive of Onedrive. I tried accessing them from Onedrive (online) but the files have become inaccessible, I am given corrolation errors, and told I don't have the necessary permissions. Please help. These files are important.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows
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  1. EmilyS726 256K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2026-07-24T14:02:38.62+00:00

    In order for us to sort all of these out, it is necessary (just for now) to get OneDrive desktop app back up and running.

    To do so, go to your Start menu and see if you already have the OneDrive app installed. If so, go ahead and run it, sign in. If you don't have it installed, you will need to download it, install it back and then set it up. You can download it from here: https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/onedrive/download

    Once you have the OneDrive app up and running again, please follow these steps closely:

    1. Right click on the OneDrive cloud icon on the lower right on your taskbar to go to Settings.
    2. On the "Sync and Backup" tab, click on "Advanced Settings" to expand that section. Then under File On-Demand, click on "Download all files".
    3. Give it plenty of time to allow the files to be downloaded from the online cloud. On your computer's file explorer, you can observe the OneDrive folder and its folders/files inside. You want all of the green checkmark icon to turn solid green with a white checkmark. Depends on how many files you have, this process can take a while, so please be patient.
    4. Once all of the folders and files turn into the solid green icon with white checkmark, you can go back to OneDrive Settings. Very important - click on "Manage Backup" button, then turn off all folders listed there.

    Restart the computer after this.

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