Sometime later and the message repeated with another copy of the folder.....ok so no problem something odd going on here but fixable and as I wasn't using OneDrive anywhere outside of any automated sync I had nothing to worry about.
Finally synchronised and I opened the personal vault online and the entire contents of the mentioned folder are in the newest version, no problem, using the online tools I selected all the files and used the move function to move the files back to the original folder.
Sometime later and my PC starts to sync again which is probably to be expected so I thought I would check the progress and to my surprise I see "deleted file xyz" "deleted files xyz"......all my files deleted, not just deleted but repeating messages of the same file being deleted so something definitely not right, grabbed what screenshots I could before all the records vanished from sight eg :
Jumped online to confirm that my files had indeed been deleted but more mysteriously of the 25 files it has deleted 22 of them but successfully moved 3.
Straight onto microsoft support, which of course is online and buried somewhere but I actually got a fairly quick response, same day. By this time I had ascertainted that the personal vault has no recycle bin so I have no trace the files ever existed and my local backups are useless because while OneDrive is set to download everything locally the personal vault is just a link, so my files are gone.
The first question Microsoft asked is which files are missing, given the response I'm getting it's not the first time they've heard this, there's none of the usual "are you sure you didn't delete by accident" obfuscation going on. Would anyone be surprised to hear that outside ofthe names on the screen shots I managed to get (19 I think it was) I don't remember the names of the files but I definitely know the names of the folders involved.
Anyway my call has been passed onto to another team and now I am left chasing daily with absolutely no response from Microsoft but I assume I know what their answer is going to be.
Needless to say I have moved all my remaining files entirely out of the personal vault, what's the point of something that cannot be backed up!.
It's now end of the day 31st January, I have asked Microsoft no less than 4 times for an update as to how the OneDrive personal vault has deleted my irretrievable files and I haven't even had an automated response, it's like no one is at home so I am going to raise a new support case now, extremely disappointed in the lack of action from a major venodr on a service I pay for.
Well, for some reason I could not find my way into the support method I accessed last time but am having a live chat with "Louis" who tells me he is a Microsoft ambassador. That he may be but after 16 minutes he's passing me to Franklyn who in the last 46 minutes minutes has thoroughly checked that I know where the recycle bin is.
Ok now hitting a total of 79 minutes and getting "please contact the onedrive support team", which is interesting because because that's where I thought I had gotten to,so have raised another call, meanwhile the current person doesn't seem keen to conclude the "I can't help but I will keep asking noddy questions" conversation.
Update : 1st feb. We are now into a new month, I have two case IDs open with Microsoft and one support call awaiting an initial response and am getting nothing whatsoever back from Microsoft support. I have just upated the support case that told me to raise a support case with what amounted to "no no we're microsoft support not onedrive support".
Update : 3rd Feb, I have had a response, which was "search through the recycle bin", which strangely I have already tried and "restore the entire recycle bin", now given I have reorganised my folder structures that's 766Gb of recycle bin, which did I mention I have already searched through. I have asked if Microsoft are saying their search function (and reorder, did a manual sight check too) doesn't work. What I have now discovered is that the files are in the recycle bin (well I found 1 in 1.5 hours of scrolling) but in the 160k files (minimum) in the recycle bin I missed the other 21 and the "search everything" function does not search the recycle bin - or of course it could be that the personal vault was locked at the time and hence they didn't show up! This isn't terribly practical.
It's now the 15th Feb and I have spent I do not know how many hours recovering the data, I did get one response from Microsoft on the 3 incidents I had and they said they were unable to help but I did in the end have to bite the bullet of restoring the 800gb of deleted data, find the files I needed and then delete the files again. Truly annoying, it turns out the personal vault had been eating files from multiple folders and inbetween when I identified the problem (and copied my files) and restored there were endless files and folders deleted none of which I had deleted.
Microsoft support were a true let down and are yet to explain to me what was the problem or what they are doing to avoid other individuals losing their data unexpectedly. I am very disappointed in Microsoft's response and lack of care and clearly the personal vault in onedrive should be avoided like the plague.
Update : 21/3/22, it's now 2 months since I contacted Microsoft and they have clearly washed their hands of a serious problem with software they advertise as safe and have yet to have the courtesy to reply on the incidents properly. It's taken my lots of time and grief to resolve a problem that was nt of my doig and just reiterates the attitude of Microsoft where theyare happy to take your money but not provide support to go with it.
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