A Manager Did Everything Right By Backing Up His Files, So The Problem He Hit While Syncing Them Came As A Shock
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Backing up your computer is very important. Otherwise, if the computer crashes, you could lose everything.
In this story, we hear about a manager whose computer needed to be sent out to be reimaged, but first, the IT worker made sure he had a backup running so that all his files would be safe when he got his computer back.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go as expected, and it ended in one very angry manager.
Keep reading to find out what went wrong.
Manager’s files went POOOFF
A few weeks ago the manager of another department needed to have their machine re-imaged because of some bugs.
Simple job.
They had had their laptop for months and never signed-on once to OneDrive.
We send out regular reminders via email for users to “Please log in to OneDrive ASAP to back up your files.” Unsurprisingly, those emails go unheeded as I find out every time I have to replace someone’s laptop or computer and ask if they have backed up to OneDrive and they give me a blank stare.
OP explained what to do.
The day before this manager was supposed to ship out their laptop, I was asked to check in on them and make sure they had backed up their files.
They, of course, hadn’t, so I showed them where to log on, what to sync, etc. I let them know OneDrive could take awhile, so just continue working and let it run in the background.
I walked away, whistling a jaunty tune, thinking all was right in the world.
Manager shipped out their laptop, I gave them a loaner, the re-imaged laptop returned some days later.
This could be bad.
The day the laptop returned, the manager called me and asked if I could help them find some documents.
I asked them if they had signed on to OneDrive and they hadn’t so I let them to know to do so and to call me back if anything was missing.
I got a sinking feeling in my gut, but was praying it was just gas.
Uh-oh!
The manager called me back and explained that OneDrive was signed in and syncing, but all that was available was folders and sub folders with nothing in them.
I checked their OneDrive web portal, in case the desktop app had not finished syncing, and all I saw was empty folders.
I checked with my boss, our O365 admin, and one other guy who had luck in the past resolving this, and they all basically said this manager was SOL.
They have a theory about what happened.
We’re pretty sure the laptop was disconnected too early and sent out without the manager confirming everything was backed up.
I still feel really bad about it, but my boss reminded me the manager should have started backing up as soon as he got the laptop months ago and let it auto sync.
We had a long, hard conversation with the them and they were understandably mad.
My manager and I both apologized, but there was nothing we could do.
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Yikes! That would be awful. It’s too bad the manager didn’t double-check to make sure the backup finished.
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This person would’ve done it differently.
Another person thinks apologizing was a mistake.
This person thinks it should’ve been handled differently.
Another person points out an easy way to prevent this from happening in the future.
I’m sure that was a horrible experience for the manager who lost all of his files. Talk about a sinking feeling!
OP tried to help the best he could, but someone really needed to double-check that the backup had finished before wiping the computer.
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