Win10 v1809 Update WIPED DATA!

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On Sunday (1/20/19) morning, my wife’s Win10 Pro machine, updated itself to v.1809 from 1803 and deleted all of the data on the D: (data) drive (I had configured it that way–to store the data in a different partition than the OS and programs).  Storage device is a 250GB Micron SSD.

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I was under the impression that I had reset the update channel to “paused”,how it got un-paused is unknown to me (it’s wifey’s computer),

we did not click “Check for updates” based on what Woody and others have written about that over the past couple of months.

The symptoms of the wiped out data, were that on reboot (during the night) a message showed up that said D: drive was unformatted and asking if it should be reformatted.  After checking that we had a good backup (which we did), I took the machine to it’s builder and they determined that the SSD had not had a partial failure of any kind, in fact, using a product called Hard Drive Sentinel, it checked out perfectly.

Upon return to us, I reformatted the D: drive and copied the data back to it from the external drive, rebooted and checked to make sure that things were operating normally, ran a test of the back up system (all OK) and hoped for the best. As of yesterday, all good so far (1/22)…

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Philomene123, Elly, woody, bogus10

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This was a known issue at the release of Win10 v1809. It was reported on this site as early as October 4th, and again here, here, here, and here, It affected computers where the User data was kept in other than the default location, sa you did. Fortunately, it seems you had a backup of the data. Many Users did not.

Supposed it had been fixed. Evidently not.

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BobbyB, Elly, woody, geekdom

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It’s a disturbing report.

The “unpausing” could come from several sources. Was the computer running Home or Pro?

I wonder if it’s a controller failure that just happened to kick in as 1809 was installing.

If it’s a genuine data wipe, we’re about to enter an entirely new phase of 1809 problems!

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BobbyB

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TS: “my wife’s Win10 Pro machine”

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“Paused” can mean so many things. What would happen if the original release was downloaded and installed but just waiting to be finalized with a re-boot.  Or downloaded and in a queue waiting to be installed. Did the re-release of 1809 just have installation fixes or did you have to install the original and have it patched during the install process? Too much not known about the user’s situation.

--Joe

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You can Pause updates for 30 days. But it has been more that 30 days since the original release and the four-day-later- retraction. So can that be suspect?

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35.

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Yep. But with Pro and either Gpedit or registry editing you can pause feature updates for longer. That is why I said there is not enough information.

--Joe

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It’s still a maximum of 35 days for a pause even via group policy or registry edit.

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Yes, but we don’t really know what the OP’s definition of pause is. It could be defer or pause. I think many use the terms interchangeably. We don’t know what servicing channel is configured. Too many unknowns.

--Joe

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b

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well my Win10 v1803 pro computer has not been offered the 1809 upgrade yet.
mainly because I set the “branch readiness level” in the Windows Update settings to use the Semi-annual channel [that is “SAC”], not “Semi-annual channel (Targeted)” [that is SAC-T]

OP (Henwin) did not say which build of 1809 was received. build 17763.1 was the one that supposedly wiped out users data. the 1809 build being pushed out to Windows update will be at least build 17763.253.

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Its just a thought here when the upgrade gets pushed out what version are they pushing out?
I had the pre release via Martin Brinkman’s method installed with a clean install. The October release pushed out, which I believe Winver 17763.55, that was causing all the Data loss problems.
Surely they would be shoving out a later Winver as an upgrade, wouldn’t they? Not really an upgrader hence I often fight “Tooth and Nail” to keep an upgrade off my Machine until I can install it on my terms with ME in control. Reading the sad plight of @henwin hasn’t really changed my mind nor mollified any fears about upgrading. It would be nice for a little more transparency on this from M$.

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As for autoupgrades through Windows Update – well, given that the update to 1803 could come up with build 17134.1 around Christmas still, at least… saw one such… I wouldn’t consider it a given that the 1809 from there would be the “current” build either.

HenryW wrote:

on the D: (data) drive (I had configured it that way–to store the data in a different partition than the OS and programs

Some hardware vendors have configured their PCs that way from the factory, and it’s been about the only simple and sane method to do shared storage on Home editions too.

So the question is, was it *actually* unformatted (being a SSD I’d expect that to mean TRIM all data blocks) or was the partition or filesystem just not recognized? Was this a GPT-partitioned disk, MBR and D: a primary partition, MBR with D: a logical partition, and was it FAT or NTFS?
(Would C: and D: have been on the same physical disk or different disks?)

Oh well, can’t check any more if it’s been reformatted and restored from backup, except for the partition table if it’s C: and D: on the same physical disk, but…

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You have made me feel cold all over, I do this as well with data and a dual boot on another drive. Too much data to back up normally, but will do that now.

Thanks for the warning of this posibilty.

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mn– wrote:

As for autoupgrades through Windows Update – well, given that the update to 1803 could come up with build 17134.1 around Christmas still, at least… saw one such… I wouldn’t consider it a given that the 1809 from there would be the “current” build either.

highly unlikely that MS will autoupgrade 1803 to 1809 build 17134.1 as that build has been pulled and replaced with at least 17134.107 (the re-released version from 11/13/2018). or the build 17134.253 from earlier this Jan. 2019.

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… well, that was an autoupgrade to 1803 in December that got the .1 build. Yes, I *was* surprised, exactly because it was so outdated by then…

Haven’t seen many autoupgrades to 1809 yet, because we prefer to mostly keep things on the slower track, but given that one I’m not very confident that an autoupgrade to 1809 would get exactly the latest build every time, either.

Oh well. Have to get back to checking a crash that happened on 1809 17763.292 …

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