Windows 10 1809 update deleted all files from Documents!

Hi Stuart, this does seem to be an emerging bug today on the 1809 update, quite a few users reporting this . .

I am really glad to hear you have a backup of your data!

What has worked for some users is - Restart (not shut down) your PC 3 or 4 times, this will fix this issue a lot of the time . . .

Hi Stuart, this does seem to be an emerging bug today on the 1809 update, quite a few users reporting this . .

I am really glad to hear you have a backup of your data!

What has worked for some users is - Restart (not shut down) your PC 3 or 4 times, this will fix this issue a lot of the time . . .

At what point do you have to Restart the PC 3 or 4 times to get your documents back? After they have been deleted or during the update? I'd like to know so when my documents are deleted I can hopefully get them back.

Hi Tom -

Alas - it gets worse. Microsoft's Backup silently stopped backing up back in February and didn't tell me, and I didn't notice. So I have maybe 100 hours of tedium ahead of me as I try to reconstruct my financial records... And the restart (3x) didn't do anything. Sigh.

I'm adding to this thread as well the latest update to 1809 Not only deletes files But It made a Mess of my system! First Not only was files Missing After a Failed General Error  0xc1900101  and I took Extra Steps to prevent in the first place, ie Removed Norton's, Removed other hardware like Blue Tooth Dongle etc. it still failed. Upon Restore I noticed lot's of Photo's and Audio file's as well as Word Doc's etc missing. Shortcuts from my Quick Launch was gone, and My System Fans as well as My Liquid Cooling Pump was in Max Turbo mode. But that is the only thing, My Software Lot's Of Software Would not start, or Launch at all the service was showing that it was running but No Interface of the software. When I dug into the Panther file to find the culprit, It was blank. So I have No Idea as to why the generic code  0xc1900101 is being used if it will not tell me what caused the failed update. So Be Warned Everyone Make Sure you use a Software Like Acronis and Clone Your Drive before starting this Update at lest you can get your system back 

Do not upgrade, do a fresh reinstall. This is always the best practice. My system is broken anyway even with 1803 as it resets file associations every reboot. So it's time to do a fresh install anyway.

Will wait until end of November, then install 1809 as fresh install when all issues are resolved.

Also I don't like the "multiple destination document" ****. Who needs this crap? I want my documents on the drive and partition I want it to. And I want to KNOW where it is.

In Germany you can't use One Drive anyway, as upload speeds here are laughable. Online backups are unusable here.

And I pay 55 EUR per month, and I have cutouts and slowdowns every week. Absolutely barbaric.

Fresh reinstalls are not acceptable, and not a proper procedure anyway. 

This is not a completely new OS, let's get that clear. It's a service pack at best. 

I'm not going to spend several days reinstalling my programs and files and weeks getting things back the way I want them every time there's an update, anyone that does waste their time like that is a fool.

Microsoft needs to have better testing and qc on these updates if they're going to force them down people's throats all the time. Thankfully I can defer the updates for a year, and I've further turned off Windows update in group policy until they fix this mess.

If it is linked to foisting OneDrive on everyone, they need to give people more free space right up front, I have 51GB to back up in my documents folder, and I already pay for Dropbox and MEGA and have free Google Drive. I'm not paying for another service that I never wanted to use in the first place.

Is there any truth to the rumor that it's related to the group policy setting for administrators that deletes user accounts created more than 30 days ago?

It seems MS have removed the version 1809 update due to these sort of problems.

See sticky thread at the top of the Windows 10 forum.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-10-october-update-is-no-longer-being/62e8e6b4-0089-41c2-a104-5a5a768a48f6

I never trusted Microsoft cloud services for my files, and here they roll out an update that deleted 50 gigs of work. Thanks Microsoft. 

so, this is what happened for me:

- After the Update everything was fine

- in the evening i shut down my Computer 

- on my next login, i was greeted by the same screen you get when you first login to a computer

- All my Files were gone, all store-apps and other user-profile installed apps were gone

- My profile had a new Profile-Folder, the old one only contained an empty OneDrive Folder

- all bloatware-apps were installed again (Candy-Crush etc.) (on an Enterprise edition, but this is not the topic here...)

- all Setting were reset to default

- after checking my registry i noticed, that my user-account had a new SID

So this "update" deleted the whole User-Profile, including all corresponding Registry entries. But did not do so during the update, but on the next boot. 

If it was just files missing, i could just copy them back from my backups, but it took hours of work reinstalling and reconfiguring apps and programms. 

Hi Tom -

Alas - it gets worse. Microsoft's Backup silently stopped backing up back in February and didn't tell me, and I didn't notice. So I have maybe 100 hours of tedium ahead of me as I try to reconstruct my financial records... And the restart (3x) didn't do anything. Sigh.

Hi Stuart,

Did you try to recover your files using data recovery software? It might work.