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How I just lost my pics and free 25GB on Skydrive

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Deepa
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BANGALORE, INDIA: I used to be a 'contended, loyal and proud Windows Phone user as well an admirer' (a very rare species I hear), until Wednesday night when I found that several of my folders, with pictures, and my supposed 25GB free cloud storage had just vanished in thin air.

After a lot of frantic trials, including logging in from Skydrive app on my handset, then again online, and then again from a laptop, confirmed my worst nightmare that my folders were indeed empty and my prized 25GB, which I have no idea how many times I have boasted of, no longer existed for me to use.

So, as with any unhappy user I went to Google (Sorry Bing, you still are a secondary option for me when it comes to 'googling') and typed my problem which took me to the Microsoft Community page where several others have also voiced similar problems.

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I call them 'similar' because the latest were five to six months old that referred to the issues when all of a sudden, in April, Microsoft decided to give only 7GB of storage free from its earlier 25GB.

Although, later on after a lot of booh-booing it extended a 'SkyDrive loyalty offer', for a limited period, under which old users can reclaim the 25GB, and which I'd also dutifully followed back then. My storage capacity had crossed 6GB then and Microsoft was very prompt in giving me back my 25GB.

 

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So, what went wrong after that? Was it because I was not as frequent on it as I used to be for quite sometime? Or was it because I had forgotten my user ID and password, which were later found out and changed respectively later on before I could open it on Wednesday that led to this debacle? I have no clue, so do many others who were on the Forum.

I have posted two questions on the Forum and am awaiting for a response.

While many of the queries have been addressed by Forum Moderators and users were asked to check their 'Recycle bin' or whether they have synced it with any other device or have accidentally deleted it or asked to do something else, at the end of every such answer they do forget to keep a disclaimer 'Note', that reads:

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"If the files are not in your Recycle bin, I'm sorry to inform you that your files are beyond recovery."

or:

"Items in the recycle bin are automatically deleted after 30 days. If your recycle bin is full, the oldest items will be automatically deleted after three days.'

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And, as if that was not enough for them so as to 'pacify' an irritated user they also add:

'Once deleted, folders cannot be retrieved'.

My posts on Microsoft Community's Skydrive Forum page still lie unanswered for the reason that it is just a day old with no 'helpful' or 'me too' votes'.

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Well, my question as a Skydrive user, or for that mater as any Microsoft service user, is why should the company wait for many more people to voice out similar grudge for them to start looking into the problem, and instead why can not they address it before more people start facing similar problems and start 'disliking' and many more 'me too'ing' it.

Well Microsoft, you just earned another dissatisfied user and it is up to you to take up the issue at the earliest before this one too start 'hating' (as do several others on the Forum) and many others 'me too'ing' you for being such a 'lousy' company.

(Aside: Sorry, that I'm using the word 'me too', which reminds me of Facebook's 'Like', again and again, but I found it very amusing)

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This validates cynics' claim that cloud is not secure after all. It is a good lesson for cloud storage users, including me, that nothing up there is safe for ever and if your value what you store there then do not forget to back-them up on something solid and not gas or water. And, if you can not then forget what is lost for once and for all.

We would like to hear from our readers on this.

Disclaimer: The opinion expressed here is that of the author and not CIOL.

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