Home Drive or Home Folder Migration to OneDrive
Details
Beginning October 1st, IWU will begin moving User's home drives into their OneDrive accounts. This article will cover some of the frequently asked questions as well as explain what the home drive is.
What is a Home Drive?
This is a folder setup to store your personal work documents locally in the datacenter. It was often referred to as a “Home Drive”, “Home Folder” or the “N: Drive”. The drives are frequently mapped to the 'N' drive letter (see screenshot below), though sometimes it may be another letter like 'F:', 'M:', or 'Z:'. Additionally the folder can be accessed by going to \\home\[first letter]\[username] (e.g. \\home\n\nathan.smith).
Below is a screenshot example of a drive mapped to N:
What will be different?
After this migration you will no longer access your Home Drive files from the location noted above. Instead you will find a new folder inside of OneDrive labeled “Home Drive”. Inside there you’ll find your files and folder structure fully replicated from your previous Home Drive.
How do I access OneDrive and my Home Drive files there?
Great question! Use the links below to learn how to access OneDrive
Will I be able to continue storing other files and data in my OneDrive Folder?
Absolutely! Just adhere to IWU’s Data Storage Policy. You may also want to review IWU’s Data Classification Policy
Do I have to keep the “Home Drive” folder if I no longer want it, or can I move things around and rename them?
What you do with the folder and the data in it is up to you. Just be sure that if you delete something, that you truly no longer need the file or folder. That said if you do accidentally delete something within OneDrive, there is a Recycle Bin where you can retrieve it.
Will I lose access to my old Home Drive?
Yes, after this migration you will need to only use OneDrive for storing data you would have typically entered into your Home Drive.
How do I recover a file that was accidentally deleted or changed?
If a file is accidentally deleted, users will be able to recover the file themselves by signing into OneDrive online, navigating to the “Recycle Bin” on the left folder menu, and restoring the file in question.
If you wish to restore a previous version, navigate to the file on the web, select the file (with the blue check mark), then click the 3-dot menu along the top row and choose “Version History”. This will show you all the previous versions saved on OneDrive and you can select the version you need.