This morning, when I logged on to my personal laptop, I opened a critical Word file and an Excel file that I have been using for years and found that the last 2 months of data was missing. Last entries were April 17, 2024.

After calming down, I was able to restore the Word doc, and although it was more of a struggle due to error messages, I finally was able to restore the Excel file. I also noted that many other non-critical files were missing 2 months of entries as well.

I have a basic Dell laptop running Windows 11 which has been flawless for the past 1 1/2 years I've owned it. I use Office 365. I did a virus scan with Defender and found no problems. Windows does not appear to have had an update yesterday that could have caused a problem.

What would have caused a 2 month loss of data on these Word and Excel files?

TIA

Is everything saved in OneDrive or Sharepoint?

Yes, I auto save onto One Drive, however when I went there to find the latest copy, it showed "last changed 4/17/24".

I had to go to "File; Info; Version History" and find that last time I updated the files which was 6/21. Clicked that and l was able to restore Word right away. Excel had some kind of message: "There are unsaved changes in the current version of this file" that prevented me from quickly restoring Excel. I think because I hit save a few times it may have taken a while to upload to One Drive. Finally, it allowed me to restore to 6/21/24.

Just more curious what would have done this to these files.

Forgot to mention, but don't think its related: I am in a different location today than when I shut down on Friday....different house and internet provider, but can't believe that would have anything to do with the data loss.

Consider also running backup software; I am currently using Backblaze for our computers at home.

My mom's laptop died a few weeks ago and i used the Backblaze web page to download all her files onto the new laptop. She was back up and running in about 6 hours.

Big fan of iDrive here. One account protects all your family computers and devices.

Tailgate88 said:

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Big fan of iDrive here. One account protects all your family computers and devices.

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I've put this on my calendar as a reminder 2 months before my Backblaze expires. Thanks!