OneDrive user lost 30 years of data — Microsoft banned the account without explanation and ignored 18 recovery requests

OneDrive user wrote on Reddit, he wrote a lengthy post about a conflict with Microsoft, which suddenly blocked his account and, consequently, access to the cloud storage with data from more than 30 years of work — the company did not provide any explanation and ignores requests for restoration, sending only boilerplate replies.

«I transferred over 30 years of photos and data to OneDrive», — wrote deus03690 on Reddit. «I wanted to combine them from several old disks that I had to throw away due to lack of space and moving. The plan was to upload the data to the cloud and then transfer it to a new disk. Instead, Microsoft simply locked my» account.

The man added that he had a paid OneDrive account and admitted that the idea of «combining several eggs in one basket» was probably a bad one, but Microsoft in this case did not even provide a warning about the potential blocking and no explanation afterwards, and ignored each of the 18 recovery requests that the user sent — only automatic unsubscribes were sent in response.

«No human contact. No real help. Only template emails and radio silence».

What could be the reason for the blocking? Author of Tom`s Hardware Mark Tyson suggests that by combining all of his data in a cloud service, deus03690 could most likely have uploaded something that triggered copyright (or similar) signals and, as a result, blocked his Microsoft account.

The user will not be allowed to use a blocked Microsoft account to access the services.
The content and data associated with a locked account will be deleted from the account (unless Microsoft is required by law to retain, return, or transfer it to the user or a third party designated by the user), so the account holder should have a regular backup plan in place, as the company will not be able to recover content or data once the account is locked.
The user may lose access to the purchased products.

Obviously, there is no good news for deus03690. The comments advise the user to contact a lawyer and in the future to choose more reliable ways to migrate data (at least without deletion) and follow the 3-2-1» — rule: have three copies of data, two different media for them, and one copy physically stored in another location or in the cloud.