Restoring Files from your H or S Drive

There is a new file/folder restore service available in Windows 7 which you can use yourselves to do the following:

1 - Restore a current file to an earlier time (within the last four working days)

2 - Restore a deleted file or folder (within the last four working days)

(See both sections lower down for more details).

Students will be able to recover data on their H-drive.

Staff will be able to recover data on their H-drive and S-drive (inc G-drive / R-drive if used).

An automatic backup is taken of this data roughly every hour, between 7am and 10pm, Monday to Friday.

For important restores further back than four working days ago, please request this through the Self Service Portal or the SIZ.

NB. Mac users can login to a Windows 7 machine to recover data

1 - Restore a current file to an earlier time

If you have accidently edited a file and perhaps lost some data, and wish to restore the file to an earlier time that day (or perhaps within the last four working days), you can follow these steps.

E.g. To restore the following file to earlier that morning H:\Documents\Projects\Sports Training.docx

  • Right-click the file and choose Restore previous versions:

You will now have a list of previous changes you have made to that file over the last four working days.

Note: if you haven't edited that file in the last four working days it will say: There are no previous versions available

Choose a suitable date and time you wish to restore the file from, and click Open:

The file will open in your default program, which will have the data from the time/date you specified.

If the file has the data you require, either copy and paste the data you need to another document, or click File/Save As (not just Save) then choose any location you wish to save the file (or overwrite your current live file).

NB. If you wish to restore the file without previewing it first, then you would choose Restore instead of Open in the previous step, then confirm if you wish to overwrite your existing file with the one from your backup.

2 - Restore a deleted file or folder

If you have accidently deleted a file or folder on your H-drive or S-drive you can follow these steps.

E.g. to restore a file H:\Documents\Projects\Sports Training.docx

  • Launch Computer
  • Open your H-drive
  • Right-click on My Documents
  • Choose Restore previous versions

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You will now have a list of previous backups to choose from ranging back about four working days.

Choose a suitable date and time you wish to restore the file from, and click Open:

Another Window appears with the entire backed up contents of your My Documents folder (how it was at your chosen date/time):

  • Navigate to the folder that has the file you previously deleted
  • Highlight the file
  • Then drag it to any live folder to copy it across (restore it):

That's it, your file is restored.

NB. You can also restore whole folders with the same dragging method. Restoring folders will not delete any of your live files; however you will be prompted if you wish to overwrite any live files with the ones from your backup