Windows File History Not Working Help!

[Excalibur20]

So I just did a clean reinstall of windows 10 (I use Education if that makes any difference) and I had file history turned on before I did the reinstall so everything was saved. Now after the reinstall I am trying to recover the files that were lost but file history is not working. It says that I didn't turn it on even though it is and when I click the link to turn it on it already shows up as on. Is there anyway to recover my files? Thanks for any help.

[Catsrules]

Yeah unfortunately your files are gone if I am understanding you correctly.  a clean Windows reinstall wipes out the drive partitions doing that wipes out the file history as well.

 

There is a chance some of the files are still intact and a data recovery service could recover them. But that is going to cost some money. If you want to go down the file recovery route you need to turn the computer off immediately so nothing can write more the drive and give it to a file recovery service. 

 

Edit Ignore this I am an idiot and thinking of the wrong thing.

[Excalibur20]

No my files were on a separate hard drive and they are still there cuz when I checked the properties of the file history folder it said it contained 830 gbs of data.

[Catsrules]

13 minutes ago, Excalibur20 said:

No my files were on a separate hard drive and they are still there cuz when I checked the properties of the file history folder it said it contained 830 gbs of data.

Ohh sorry I thought you were talking about previous versions/volume shadow copies. I keep forgetting Windows 10 had a feature called File History. My bad.

 

I would take a look at this post about it. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-correctly-use-file-history-to-transfer-data-files-to-a-new-windows-10-installation/

 

It tells you the correct way to restore files from file history on a new system/clean install..

[Excalibur20]

10 minutes ago, Catsrules said:

Ohh sorry I thought you were talking about previous versions/volume shadow copies. I keep forgetting Windows 10 had a feature called File History. My bad.

 

I would take a look at this post about it. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-correctly-use-file-history-to-transfer-data-files-to-a-new-windows-10-installation/

 

It tells you the correct way to restore files from file history on a new system/clean install..

so I read the article and the second step says to select the I Want To Use A Previous Backup On This File History Drive check box. I don't get that option.

[Net Runner]

You don't get the checkbox because your File History is turned on. You need to turn it off and possibly completely disable it (bring to fresh install state) to be able to see the checkbox. 

[Excalibur20]

4 hours ago, Net Runner said:

You don't get the checkbox because your File History is turned on. You need to turn it off and possibly completely disable it (bring to fresh install state) to be able to see the checkbox. 

So how do I bring it to a fresh install state?

[GoodBytes]

On 3/14/2020 at 10:37 PM, Excalibur20 said:

So I just did a clean reinstall of windows 10 (I use Education if that makes any difference) and I had file history turned on before I did the reinstall so everything was saved. Now after the reinstall I am trying to recover the files that were lost but file history is not working. It says that I didn't turn it on even though it is and when I click the link to turn it on it already shows up as on. Is there anyway to recover my files? Thanks for any help.

No panic. File History provides you with the latest version of files accessible. If you browse your File History folder, you'll find all your files, latest version. Nothing is lost.

 

As for turning it on part, I am not sure what you mean. Did you try restarting your system? 

[Excalibur20]

Oh I didn't realize that the actual files were stored in the folder, but yeah there're under data. Thank you.