windows 10 (October 2018 update) (version 1809) deleted all my files

"Are you quite sure your regrettable data loss has nothing to do with your own failure to ensure safe and backup on thumb drive, USB-drive, NAS, whatever?"

That's blaming the customer.  Patches shouldn't hurt.  Period.  

totally agree here.

Hindsight is always 20/20, too bad we all cant go back and have a do-over whenever we want. It doesn't help to chastise people who have lost their documents, they probably wont let it happen again. The blame falls squarely on microsoft's shoulders. sorry

The blame for the initial data loss is indeed on Microsoft, no doubt about it.  Users are responsible for protecting their own data, however, from whatever calamities might occur.

Sorry for the loss of your VM file. Not only does it exceed the capacity of a normal OneDrive, but it breaks this rule...

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/sync-your-documents-pictures-and-desktop-folders-with-onedrive-d61a7930-a6fb-4b95-b28a-6552e77c3057

Sync your Documents, Pictures, and Desktop folders with OneDrive

"File exceeds the maximum file size: OneDrive can't sync files over 20 GB. Remove these files from the folder you want to protect and then try again."

Looks like 1809 set it as default to protect the contents of those folders. But the feature couldn't handle it when a rule was broken. And your VM file now swims with the fishes.

It sound like a Kafkaesque data proteciton racket, I never asked for OneDrive to begin with. But anyhow I am genuinely happy that they pulled the update and that prosperity won't be talking of the Microsoft great October Document Purge (MODP). If they did roll it out over 150 or so million clients with a high percentage of affected systems then the amount of lost work would be mind boggling. Its probably a lot more then the hours spend on building the pyramids and going to the moon put together. Pulling it certainly avoided some bankruptcies and might even prevented some suicides. 

I hope this worst case "near hit" will be study material for OS developers and will galvanized the patch testing processes.

Whew! I feel extremely lucky that I switched to Google Drive (out of cheapness probably -- 15 free GB and "unlimited" photo storage) and moved my needed/cared-about files there from OneDrive. Another salient difference between GD and OD is that GD doesn't strongly insist on a JunctionPoint/SimDir for MyDocuments, Pictures, Music, etc. 

I feel that with that move (including turning OD sync off) I probably spared myself Robert Z's misery, and to add my 2 cents to this discussion: Backup is of course a great idea, but backing up Ghosted files ("On Demand" as they are called by OneDrive for a couple years now)  is a bit of a minefield with almost all software (I use Acronis 2019 and haven't tested it with 1803 -> 1809 updates).  I'm certain many Millennials on the OneDrive team weren't on the original Groove team from 2005/6 when MSFT made that acquisition, and could never have foreseen the "cloud-first" principal carrying to such an extreme such as the 1809 debacle implies, nor seeing Groove tightly integrated with the Operating System 10 years later. 

Good luck to all who are impacted, and please consider waiting for Feature Updates (as opposed to Security Updates) to give them time to "bake" as so many different MS teams seem to be involved with the former, and testing is a bit more "rigid" on the latter. Again my 2 cents as an 'ex-Softie' :)

Bruce, what I wrote in the second post to try Data Recovery from Recuva and then later moved it to the top of the checklist, I realized a bootable option would be better so nothing was overwritten even by the small Recuva install.  I went to find Get Data Back which I've used in the past but could not find a bootable copy of it.  Do you use it or another bootable solution you recommend?  

Thanks!  Better late than never.

I haven't had a chance to read through all 19 pages, but has the original poster, or any other with data loss, tried data recovery software yet?

So long as you haven't overwritten the files by trying to reinstall windows and re-installing a bunch of programs, most of the data should be recoverable. When the OS deletes a file it typically just marks the space as available for use rather than writing over the files. In the case of 220GB of data, a large portion of it should be recoverable. I feel Microsoft should offer vouchers for software that can recover files. A program like Get Data Back Simple/NTFS would work great. We use it at the PC repair shop I work at all the time. 

Also, should you really want the data it is best to stop using the system and take it to a place that can recover the data for you. Or, use a bootable media that is capable of recovering the data. That is the best bet to prevent more data from getting over written.

Another thing to note, when recovering the data... you cannot recover to the same drive or you WILL lose more data.  The best scenario is to boot from another media that has tools capable of performing data recovery. Use the data recovery software to scan the affected drive/s and then transfer/recover files to yet another drive. You might want to go get a 2TB WD Passport. Another thing, if your comfortable with the windows environment and don't want to mess with odd bootable CDs or such, you can boot windows from a USB device, like a hard drive plugged into a dock. Many repair shops will sell you a smaller capacity used HDD for around $20 or so that you can use to install a test copy of Windows 10 and some recovery software to and then boot it from a HDD Dock.

To summarize.... if you want to keep your data, Stop using the system. Take it to a repair/recovery shop to get your data back. Or, switch to another drive with recovery software on it. Buy another drive to store your data to. Transfer recovered data from affected drive to new drive.

Hope this helps

Problems ON SERVER like this issue IS NOT. MUTUALLY  

INCLUSIVE;  

THESE are "computer server" ISSUES;  You TYPICALLY don't hire in application programmer or a Java programmer to perform 

system software,, 

 And you certainly WOULD NOT  release Beta software WITH BIOS MB software.OR 

 Give this to muÑoz instead of any good,,BUT NOT anybody will LICKS  lizardS;  

 Wherever you INSTALLED mother boards from, NOR the BIOS was a properly set up nor was the config sys for the amount of 220GB files that you lost NEITHER;  HAS or the files  till there's SOLUTION;.. If they're not your files to build nor if the motherboard has enough proper MSI hardware on it than the 220GB the files is purely lost.**;; 

    AUDITOR'S live by a code whole anarchist DO NOT'◇◇◇

 Florida has always hired ILLegal immigrants..AND drunks;    

G.I.G.O. 1809,,

These errors have been showing up since approximately June with

KB2972211; 

 Because of this trash Microsoft is getting sued because technicians don't know "SHEDD aquarium "about computers,,,THEY. BUILD AND  they're not ALLOWED to fix them...

 Microsoft will lose between 3% to 5.0 % of their workforce over NEXT  month because of this

ERR:=

@ISERRCELLPOINTERCONTENTS;..including lizardLICKR: 

that WORDEN came from 

THEIR

medical FILE;  it's tough to calculate comptr ERRS..

 Hospital DONT LIKE computer abuse...Jankowski.

M.A.B.