Lost My Documents Folder

ladylou · 12 Aug 2019

Hi, Please be gentle as new to this;

I have Windows 10 with all updates. Noticed that One Drive h

as not been 'working' since late 2018, or that was the date of the latest document.

Tried to get this organised but with my arthritic hands I somehow dropped My Documents into another folder!

Try as I might I cannot get it to move back to it's correct location, and have just ended up with loads of My Documents shortcuts all over the place.

From what I have read so far, it would appear this is a fairly difficult thing to restore other than completely re-installing Windows 10 which I would rather not do.

I noticed this as a problem because the location of my documents is now in C/Users which I cannot sync with One Drive and that is what I want to do as I have a laptop and do travel.

Can anyone help or at least explain a work around - Many thanks in advance

dalchina · 12 Aug 2019

Hi, sorry to hear of your problem. You are correct, this could be impossible to resolve, not least because it's not clear exactly what you did, and the time since this happened.

Did you use the Location tab (available when you rt click My Documents etc), or did you copy the folder?

Do you use disk imaging routinely (e.g. a program like Macrium reflect) as is so often recommended here to support your PC and allow you to recover easily to a previous working state without technical help? If so, you could have simply restored a recent disk image.

However, you say the problem occurred months ago, so that would be a big problem and make this a poor solution at this juncture.

(Using disk imaging can often help people avoid the need for a clean install, as you wish to do).

Could you post a screenshot of your Users folder and any others that might help people understand this please?

To post a screenshot please use the Insert Image icon above your post.

Do you have a full backup of your personal data?

bro67 · 12 Aug 2019

See Restore Default Location of Personal Folders in Windows 10

dalchina · 12 Aug 2019

That's relevant if the folder was relocated using the Location tab. We don't actually know that yet, hence my question...

ladylou · 12 Aug 2019

Thank you for your reply. I must have given the wrong impression, this happened last week. I dropped it into my One Drive folder originally, hence discovering that One Drive had not worked since 2018, However, the folder does not appear to be there, that is to say, it is shown in the One Drive folder on my computer, but nothing new has been uploaded to One Drive yet, despite re-setting up One Drive over the weekend, however, that in itself is another problem.

I have attempted to do a screen shot showing a folder with an icon called Documents, this has the contents of the My Documents folder. The plain brown folder immediately beneath also called Documents has : My Photos, My Music, My Photos so I am really not sure what is happening,

Lost My Documents Folder-screenshot-26-.png

dalchina · 12 Aug 2019

Hi, it will help if you can answer the questions accurately, so here are just two I asked:
a. Did you use the Location tab (available when you rt click My Documents etc), or did you simply copy or drag and drop the folder?

b. Do you use disk imaging and do you have a recent disk image?
Given that this only happened recently, rather than 'since late 2018' as per your first post, this would give you a quick simple way forward - restoring an image.

ladylou · 12 Aug 2019

I was attempting to 'drag' and as stated, due to arthritis I accidentally 'dropped' the folder into the One Drive folder.

I have no knowledge of what you mention in question 2.

I perhaps was not clear in my original post, I was carrying out this work last week, and noticed that One Drive had not worked since 2018 as there were no more recent files in there - as I said, a problem for another day.

AlienOnVacation · 12 Aug 2019

Open one drive folder, right click the documents folder, click properties, click the Location tab, then click "restore Default", then the okay button at the bottom. If it asks you then "move" all the files also... I do this often when I am very tired

I used bro67's link... that also did a great job.