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When you bring your HVCC-provided Windows laptop to the IIT Help Desk, there are certain instances when we need to erase your laptop and re-image it (reinstall the operating system). One such instance would be in order to upgrade your laptop from Windows 10 to Windows 11. Another instance would be if we are replacing your laptop with a new one.
If you haven't already done so yourself, Help Desk will back up your data and restore it to the newly imaged laptop for you in these cases. However, to save us time, and to save you time without your laptop, you can back up your data yourself before bringing it in.
IMPORTANT: Hard drives and SSDs can fail, and we often cannot recover data from failed drives. Please store important files in either OneDrive or your H Drive regardless of whether you're backing up data before a re-image.
What about my programs/applications?
When we re-image or replace your laptop, we will be completely wiping the internal storage and reinstalling everything. Any additional programs or applications you have installed will be removed.
The default applications we install on all HVCC Windows laptops are:
- Adobe Acrobat (and Creative Cloud, for installing other Adobe apps)
- Google Chrome
- Mozilla Firefox
- DisplayLink (docking station driver)
- Microsoft 365 Apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.)
- Zoom
Other programs/applications that you'd like installed/reinstalled can be installed at the time of your appointment to pick up your device. Please discuss this with Help Desk when you drop off your laptop for re-imaging/replacement.
What about my bookmarks?
Your bookmarks will be deleted when we image your laptop, unless you sync your browser with an account. A guide on how to back up your bookmarks in any browser (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) is available in the article Exporting and Importing Bookmarks in All Browsers.
Where are my files?
Typically you would be storing your files on your laptop in C:\Users\<yourusername> in any of the following folders: Documents, Desktop, Pictures, Music, Downloads, etc. Please check all of these folders and the root of your user folder for any files you might need.
Please also check the root of your C: drive for any files you may have accidentally placed there.
Backing up your files
OneDrive
HVCC users are provided a very large amount of storage in Microsoft OneDrive. If you aren't already doing so, we recommend storing any important files you need to be able to access from multiple devices (or not) on OneDrive.
To set up OneDrive sync on your laptop, click the Start menu (Windows icon), search for OneDrive, open it, and follow the instructions to enter your email address, sign in, and set up OneDrive.
Once set up, OneDrive will show up as a location in the file explorer, on the left sidebar. You can move files into this location by clicking-and-dragging, just as you would to move files to any other folder.
To ensure these files are synced with OneDrive properly after moving them, check that there is a green checkmark next to each file.
You can also see your files synced with OneDrive by going to this link in your browse (we recommend bookmarking this): https://m365.cloud.microsoft/onedrive/
More detailed instructions from Microsoft can be found on their Sync files with OneDrive in Windows webpage.
H: Drive
If your important files are in your H: Drive (same as the Desktop, Documents, etc from your desktop PC, but not your laptop), you should be all set, as your files are already in a network location.
You can access your H: Drive in the file explorer on your laptop when connected to the HVCC-COMM wireless network or when plugged into your docking station on campus. If the H: Drive does not show up when you're connected, sign out and sign back in to your laptop.
External storage
If you'd prefer, you may choose to back up any files to your own personal external storage device (external hard drive or SSD). After we re-image your device, we can restore the data from your external storage device with you, or you can do it yourself after picking the laptop up.
Additional notes
When a file is copied from one location (or drive) to another, the "creation date" of the file in the new location may change to the current date/time (when the file was copied) as opposed to the date/time the file was actually originally created. This is because the file is "created" on the new location at the time of the copy/paste.