New hard drive - user states almost all data missing

[Terry R.]

We have been replacing hard drives on laptops. I have a Onenote user
who told me today most of her Onenote files were missing. Since all
laptop data is stored on servers, I told her that any data should still
be in the folders it was in originally. Files that she specifically
saved are there. But she states that most of the time she would work in
Onenote and then just close it and the data would be there next time it
was opened.

I don't know how she is doing her work. I thought users saved Onenote
data like other programs, by saving files, but by her description I must
be wrong.

Is Onenote data stored locally even if My Documents is a network drive?
Would everything she works on be sitting in the cache?

I still have the old drive so I can retrieve anything left behind.

Thanks for any info here on how to get her info back.

--
Terry R.

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[David]

Default location for notebooks is: ..\My Documents\OneNote Notebooks.
You could scan the user's My Documents folder for *.one files.

Otherwise, pop the drive back in, start OneNote, Menu: Tools-Options,
Category: Save will reveal all.

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was 10/27/2008 1:54 PM, and on a whim, David pounded
out on the keyboard:

Default location for notebooks is: ..\My Documents\OneNote Notebooks.
You could scan the user's My Documents folder for *.one files.

Otherwise, pop the drive back in, start OneNote, Menu: Tools-Options,
Category: Save will reveal all.

Hi David,

Users "My Documents" is on a server, and nothing was deleted from there.
There are files located in the folder you stated, but the user claims
she had "many more". But since she described not saving anything per se
as I described, I didn't know where everything could be being stored.

I can access the drive out of the laptop, but I don't know if that will
help.

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Terry R.

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[YouBetcha]

Typically OneNote would default to creating a "OneNote Notebooks"
subdirectory of My Documents. The various subdirectories of "OneNOte
Notebooks" will contain the notebook files she was looking for. She can just
open them from the file menu in OneNote. If the notebook files were on the
network drive, it won't be a problem, she can reopen her workbooks by
pointing OneNote to these locations.

However, she had the option to change the location of the "OneNote
Notebooks" subdirectory. She could have changed them to a hard drive
location (anywhere).

Files in the directories will have the extension *.one

On the usage and how the files are saved, her description is accurate, the
user doesn't have to "save" "open" or "close" files. OneNote is designed so
that when you launch the software, it will start off in the state you last
left off, without user intervention. Changes are made and stored
automatically. You potentially would use the same notebooks all the time,
not use different files like you would with other office software.

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was 10/27/2008 2:10 PM, and on a whim, YouBetcha
pounded out on the keyboard:

Typically OneNote would default to creating a "OneNote Notebooks"
subdirectory of My Documents. The various subdirectories of "OneNOte
Notebooks" will contain the notebook files she was looking for. She can just
open them from the file menu in OneNote. If the notebook files were on the
network drive, it won't be a problem, she can reopen her workbooks by
pointing OneNote to these locations.

She states the data/files/info is not in any folders. She works in
OneNote everyday, but there aren't very many with new dates.

However, she had the option to change the location of the "OneNote
Notebooks" subdirectory. She could have changed them to a hard drive
location (anywhere).

The OneNote Notebook folder is located on the network and she never
changed the path.

Files in the directories will have the extension *.one

On the usage and how the files are saved, her description is accurate, the
user doesn't have to "save" "open" or "close" files. OneNote is designed so
that when you launch the software, it will start off in the state you last
left off, without user intervention. Changes are made and stored
automatically. You potentially would use the same notebooks all the time,
not use different files like you would with other office software.

Where are the changes "stored" if she doesn't save anything with a
specific filename? I think this is the issue. Now that she has a new
hard drive, those stored changes are no longer there, since she never
specifically saved anything.

Thanks,



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Terry R.

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[David]

--
David Olsen
www.powerbits.com.au

The date and time was 10/27/2008 2:10 PM, and on a whim, YouBetcha pounded
out on the keyboard:


She states the data/files/info is not in any folders. She works in
OneNote everyday, but there aren't very many with new dates.


The OneNote Notebook folder is located on the network and she never
changed the path.


Where are the changes "stored" if she doesn't save anything with a
specific filename? I think this is the issue. Now that she has a new
hard drive, those stored changes are no longer there, since she never
specifically saved anything.

Thanks,




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Terry R.

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[David]

The file name is derived from the section name.
The file will be found in a folder that has the name of the ON notebook.

 

[Ilya Koulchin]

The date and time was 10/27/2008 2:10 PM, and on a whim, YouBetcha
pounded out on the keyboard:


She states the data/files/info is not in any folders. She works in
OneNote everyday, but there aren't very many with new dates.

It is possible she inadvertently set OneNote to work offline, and then
continued in that state for a period of time. If she were working from
just one computer, it would be completely transparent to her, and it'd
be easy to overlook that changes weren't being saved to the server. If
that is what happened, then the solution is to boot up OneNote from the
old drive, go to File->Sync->Sync status, make sure OneNote is not
configured to work offline, and trigger a sync of all the notebooks.

While you're at it, make a note of all the notebook paths that're open
in OneNote. If any of the notebooks are missing from the new computer,
you can reopen them from those paths.

Another possibility is that sync is failing due to Windows Offline Files
conflicts. If that is the case, make sure that all offline files
conflicts are resolved.

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was 10/27/2008 3:34 PM, and on a whim, Ilya Koulchin
pounded out on the keyboard:

It is possible she inadvertently set OneNote to work offline, and then
continued in that state for a period of time. If she were working from
just one computer, it would be completely transparent to her, and it'd
be easy to overlook that changes weren't being saved to the server. If
that is what happened, then the solution is to boot up OneNote from the
old drive, go to File->Sync->Sync status, make sure OneNote is not
configured to work offline, and trigger a sync of all the notebooks.

While you're at it, make a note of all the notebook paths that're open
in OneNote. If any of the notebooks are missing from the new computer,
you can reopen them from those paths.

Another possibility is that sync is failing due to Windows Offline Files
conflicts. If that is the case, make sure that all offline files
conflicts are resolved.

Hi Ilya,

Thanks for the ideas. This user did use OF. We are slowly moving
laptop users to use the Symantec Backup Agent since OF is too quirky,
but she's still using it now.

I will bring the old drive with me when I'm onsite Wednesday to check to
see if ON was Offline or not, and note the paths.

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[Terry R.]

The date and time was 10/27/2008 1:41 PM, and on a whim, Terry R.
pounded out on the keyboard:

We have been replacing hard drives on laptops. I have a Onenote user
who told me today most of her Onenote files were missing. Since all
laptop data is stored on servers, I told her that any data should still
be in the folders it was in originally. Files that she specifically
saved are there. But she states that most of the time she would work in
Onenote and then just close it and the data would be there next time it
was opened.

I don't know how she is doing her work. I thought users saved Onenote
data like other programs, by saving files, but by her description I must
be wrong.

Is Onenote data stored locally even if My Documents is a network drive?
Would everything she works on be sitting in the cache?

I still have the old drive so I can retrieve anything left behind.

Thanks for any info here on how to get her info back.

I connected the hard drive to my workstation and found a Backup folder in
....\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\OneNote\12.0\.

There is an "Open Sections" folder, and "Unfiled Notes" folder, and one
of her business meeting folders, with a few of the files being quite
large. As suggested, one of the large files could have been opened and
had been storing all of info when she said she was just opening and
closing ON most of the time and the data was just "there"?

All the files have the .one extension. If I copy the folders over to
the new hard drive to the same location, will they be automatically
picked up by OneNote?

Thanks,

--
Terry R.

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[Terry R.]

The date and time was 10/27/2008 4:40 PM, and on a whim, Terry R.
pounded out on the keyboard:

The date and time was 10/27/2008 1:41 PM, and on a whim, Terry R.
pounded out on the keyboard:


I connected the hard drive to my workstation and found a Backup folder in
...\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\OneNote\12.0\.

There is an "Open Sections" folder, and "Unfiled Notes" folder, and one
of her business meeting folders, with a few of the files being quite
large. As suggested, one of the large files could have been opened and
had been storing all of info when she said she was just opening and
closing ON most of the time and the data was just "there"?

All the files have the .one extension. If I copy the folders over to
the new hard drive to the same location, will they be automatically
picked up by OneNote?

Thanks,

I also found a file named OneNoteOfflineCache.onecache that is quite
large. I'm guessing she may have been working in the Offline mode, if
it's large because she hadn't synced everything recently.

There is a folder named OneNoteOfflineCache_Files that also has a lot of
PDF, DOC, XLS files, so at least it appears the data is there.

Better this was found this way than having a hard drive go bad thinking
everything was stored safe on a server.

--
Terry R.

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[Rainald Taesler]

Hi Terry,
this thread is really one of the most hectically ones I've seen for
quite a while and it has become rather chaotic {siiigh}.
I'll try to help by giving some information step-by-step.

I also found a file named OneNoteOfflineCache.onecache that is quite
large. I'm guessing she may have been working in the Offline mode,
if it's large because she hadn't synced everything recently.

This is no *special* situation.
OneNote *always* works from a *cache* (and in so far is different from
any other software I know).
The *notebook*-files are basic thing. They are loaded if a notebook is
opened in OneNote. But once the notebooks are open, OneNote stores
everything in the cache and works from there. Changed data are written
back to the data-files (notebooks).

Things in the *cache are *NOT* the data-files (notebook files) needed.
With the cached data nothing can be done if the basic notebook-files are
missing.

If it would just be a *stand-alone* computer the data-files (notebooks)
by default would be sitting in a subdirectory of
%userprofile%\documents\ - normally "OneNote-notebooks".
If the computer is part of a network, it could be that all of the
notebook files were sitting on a server and opened from there (shared)
and no notebook files stored *locally*.
In a network environment this would be the *normal* situation as this
way more than one computer could use the notebooks and all data would be
synchronized automatically.

There is a folder named OneNoteOfflineCache_Files that also has a
lot of PDF, DOC, XLS files, so at least it appears the data is
there.

Right. These are just files belonging to the cache. They are created
when opening files inside OneNote which are embedded.
They can be deleted without any harm be done to the the notebooks (the
files are held inside the notebooks).

Better this was found this way than having a hard drive go bad
thinking everything was stored safe on a server.

The files you detected are just "good for nothing".
OneNote can not *work* with them.
OneNote needs the *notebook*-files to start with.

All of what you mentioned here can just be deleted.

Rainald

 

[Rainald Taesler]

I connected the hard drive to my workstation and found a Backup
folder in ...\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\OneNote\12.0\.

Under "normal conditions" there are no notebook-files in this
subdirectory.
In this location only files are stored which are belonging to the cache.

The *normal* place for storing the notebook-files is "%userprofile%\My
Documents\OneNote Notebooks".
One can change this in OneNote, however (via the "Tools | Options |
Save" dialog). No one in this world - except the *User* - would be able
to say what the User had specified as the default location of storage.

There is an "Open Sections" folder, and "Unfiled Notes" folder,

I can't say what "Open Sections might be. And "Unfiled Notes" would be
sitting where the notebooks are sitting.

and
one of her business meeting folders, with a few of the files being
quite large. As suggested, one of the large files could have been
opened and had been storing all of info when she said she was just
opening and closing ON most of the time and the data was just
"there"?

All of this sounds rather strange.
No idea on what she might have be doing.

All the files have the .one extension. If I copy the folders over
to the new hard drive to the same location, will they be
automatically picked up by OneNote?

*NO*.
ON will not pick these files "automatically".
ON does not pick up anything "automatically".
Each and any notebook-file has to be opened explicitly.

As said: The default directory for notebook-files is ..\My
Documents\OneNote Notebooks".
Therefore you might copy the "*.one" files to this location on the new
drive.
They can be opened from there so that the User might check whether it's
current data or just some odd stuff.

Rainald

 

[Rainald Taesler]

We have been replacing hard drives on laptops. I have a Onenote
user who told me today most of her Onenote files were missing.
Since all laptop data is stored on servers, I told her that any
data should still be in the folders it was in originally. Files
that she specifically saved are there.

What do you mean by "specifically saved"??
Working with OneNote one does not "save" and close files (one note does
not even have a "Save" feature).

But she states that most of
the time she would work in Onenote and then just close it and the
data would be there next time it was opened.

That's exactly the way one works with OneNote.
One just opens the notebooks (be it locally [standard location is
"%userprofile%\My Documents\OneNote Notebooks"] OR from a shared
(possibly mapped) device in the network.
One does not "close" the files (as is usual with standard applications),
one just leaves everything open and closes OneNote instead. When opening
OneNote again, everything is open.

I don't know how she is doing her work. I thought users saved
Onenote data like other programs, by saving files, but by her
description I must be wrong.

*NO*
Totally wrong assumption on your side.
What she told you just is the normal way of working with OneNote.

Is Onenote data stored locally even if My Documents is a network
drive?

*NO*
The OneNote notebook-file *normally* will not be stored locally if "My
Documents" is a network drive. They will - depending on how things are
set up - either sitting be in the User's "My Documents" directory OR -
to make things even more complicated - or on a *shared* network device
(if the notebooks are to used by other users too and in so far the
automatic synching feature is used).

Would everything she works on be sitting in the cache?

OneNote works with a cache. That's the basics of it all.
By default (unless "symbolic links/NTFS-links are used) the cache is
sitting in the user's
%localappdata%\Microsoft\OneNote\12.0\
directory.
BUT: The cache is just one big file only usable by ON and there are no
usable notebooks in there.

I still have the old drive so I can retrieve anything left behind.

If - as you say - the "%userprofile%\My Documents" folder is sitting in
the network, there is no use at all in using the old local drive.
The notebooks have to opened from the place they were stored.

Rainald

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Users "My Documents" is on a server, and nothing was deleted from
there. There are files located in the folder you stated, but the
user claims she had "many more". But since she described not
saving anything per se as I described, I didn't know where
everything could be being stored.

As apparently no-one in here has taken classes in clairvoyance <bg,d&r>
nobody will be able to say where her missing notebook files might be
{siiiigh}.

I can access the drive out of the laptop, but I don't know if that
will help.

Most probably not.
But you may search around for "*.one" files and move/copy the found
items to the default storage place. Then the user might check the
content and determine if it was of use or not.

Rainald

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Terry R. shared these thoughts of wisdom::

She states the data/files/info is not in any folders. She works in
OneNote everyday, but there aren't very many with new dates.

She's wrong in so far as she says that the data-files would not be in a
folder.
Most probably she just is not informed enough on how ON works :-( :-(
OneNote works with "notebook"-files (*.one"). Those are stored in
folders. One opens them and works with them. ON uses a cache (stored
locally) but the date are stored in the "notebook"- (*.one)-files.

The OneNote Notebook folder is located on the network and she never
changed the path.

Pretty good!!
So nothing has to be done except opening the files located on the
network.
Problems might only occur if the user by mistake would have created any
notebooks locally.

Where are the changes "stored" if she doesn't save anything with a
specific filename? I think this is the issue.

No. this is not an issue.
Changes are just stored in the notebook-files used.
And if the notebooks are divided by "sections" and/or "section groups"
these are stored just in sub-directories of the respective
notebook-files (bearing the sections' name and having the ".one"
extension.

Now that she has a new hard drive, those stored changes
are no longer there, since she never specifically saved anything.

*NO*
Wrong mental concept on your side.
Everything is saved *automatically" in the respective *.one files.

Rainald

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was 10/27/2008 7:49 PM, and on a whim, Rainald Taesler
pounded out on the keyboard:

As apparently no-one in here has taken classes in clairvoyance <bg,d&r>
nobody will be able to say where her missing notebook files might be
{siiiigh}.

Clairvoyance not needed. All laptop users "My Documents" are on a
server. Regarding this, some statements in other posts seem conflicting
to me and I will address them there.

Most probably not.
But you may search around for "*.one" files and move/copy the found
items to the default storage place. Then the user might check the
content and determine if it was of use or not.

Rainald

--
Terry R.

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[Terry R.]

The date and time was 10/27/2008 8:07 PM, and on a whim, Rainald Taesler
pounded out on the keyboard:

Terry R. shared these thoughts of wisdom::


She's wrong in so far as she says that the data-files would not be in a
folder.
Most probably she just is not informed enough on how ON works :-( :-(
OneNote works with "notebook"-files (*.one"). Those are stored in
folders. One opens them and works with them. ON uses a cache (stored
locally) but the date are stored in the "notebook"- (*.one)-files.

I stated data/files/info, not data-files, because at this point I don't
really know WHAT it is ON is storing. She has .one files in the default
ON folder. There are also files in the appdata ON folder (although at
this point we haven't determined whether they are useful or not). I'm
sure she didn't put them there. Not good design IMO.

Pretty good!!
So nothing has to be done except opening the files located on the
network.
Problems might only occur if the user by mistake would have created any
notebooks locally.

"Created" again brings up a question I have regarding how you are saying
ON works.

No. this is not an issue.
Changes are just stored in the notebook-files used.
And if the notebooks are divided by "sections" and/or "section groups"
these are stored just in sub-directories of the respective
notebook-files (bearing the sections' name and having the ".one"
extension.

Now we have "stored" & "created".

*NO*
Wrong mental concept on your side.
Everything is saved *automatically" in the respective *.one files.

Rainald

Now we have "stored", "created", and "saved". No data/files/info has
been deleted from her server drive.

--
Terry R.

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[Terry R.]

The date and time was 10/27/2008 7:05 PM, and on a whim, Rainald Taesler
pounded out on the keyboard:

Hi Terry,
this thread is really one of the most hectically ones I've seen for
quite a while and it has become rather chaotic {siiigh}.
I'll try to help by giving some information step-by-step.


This is no *special* situation.
OneNote *always* works from a *cache* (and in so far is different from
any other software I know).
The *notebook*-files are basic thing. They are loaded if a notebook is
opened in OneNote. But once the notebooks are open, OneNote stores
everything in the cache and works from there. Changed data are written
back to the data-files (notebooks).

Things in the *cache are *NOT* the data-files (notebook files) needed.
With the cached data nothing can be done if the basic notebook-files are
missing.

If it would just be a *stand-alone* computer the data-files (notebooks)
by default would be sitting in a subdirectory of
%userprofile%\documents\ - normally "OneNote-notebooks".
If the computer is part of a network, it could be that all of the
notebook files were sitting on a server and opened from there (shared)
and no notebook files stored *locally*.
In a network environment this would be the *normal* situation as this
way more than one computer could use the notebooks and all data would be
synchronized automatically.


Right. These are just files belonging to the cache. They are created
when opening files inside OneNote which are embedded.
They can be deleted without any harm be done to the the notebooks (the
files are held inside the notebooks).


The files you detected are just "good for nothing".
OneNote can not *work* with them.
OneNote needs the *notebook*-files to start with.

All of what you mentioned here can just be deleted.

Rainald

Okay, that gets rid of the .onecache file and the
OneNoteOFflineCache_Files folder. Nothing useful there.

--
Terry R.

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[Terry R.]

The date and time was 10/27/2008 7:19 PM, and on a whim, Rainald Taesler
pounded out on the keyboard:

Under "normal conditions" there are no notebook-files in this
subdirectory.
In this location only files are stored which are belonging to the cache.

Normal? There are many .one files there. Are you saying only the user
could have directed (word I'm using different from the three you used)
them there? I don't see how.

The *normal* place for storing the notebook-files is "%userprofile%\My
Documents\OneNote Notebooks".
One can change this in OneNote, however (via the "Tools | Options |
Save" dialog). No one in this world - except the *User* - would be able
to say what the User had specified as the default location of storage.

That's where the user saved them. No changes were made in ON. But not
all the data/files/info is there (I don't know what to call it at this
point).

I can't say what "Open Sections might be. And "Unfiled Notes" would be
sitting where the notebooks are sitting.

I can assure you the user did not create the folders. It seems clear
they are for ON usage, and neither of them are where the "notebooks" are
sitting but in the ON appdata area.

All of this sounds rather strange.
No idea on what she might have be doing.

Opening and closing ON, working in it every day.

*NO*.
ON will not pick these files "automatically".
ON does not pick up anything "automatically".
Each and any notebook-file has to be opened explicitly.

As said: The default directory for notebook-files is ..\My
Documents\OneNote Notebooks".
Therefore you might copy the "*.one" files to this location on the new
drive.
They can be opened from there so that the User might check whether it's
current data or just some odd stuff.

Rainald

--
Terry R.

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