Windows 10: Accidentally activated OneDrive - would like to restore all files back to my hard drive and...

Hi, I activated OneDrive on my work laptop and immediately regretted it. Initially paused the sync but realized some files were no longer local and some were so decided it was best to allow it to finish with its transfer and go from there. All files synced to One Drive and I can see them in my File Explorer. Then, I went into "Manage Back up" and turned off all folders. Then, I copied all of the files from One Drive and pasted them into their respective folders on my local drive. Apparently this is not the best way to do things according to the email I then received from Microsoft Support. The

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Recent shortcuts for apps show files on OneDrive instead of local hard drive

I was able to follow the steps and uncheck the "Use Office apps to sync" box but it didn't change Office's behavior. I opened and closed an Excel spreadsheet on my local hard drive. After that, when I right-clicked on the Excel icon pinned to the taskbar, a link to the OneDrive cloud file was in the list of recent files instead of a link to the file on my hard drive.

Do you have any other suggestions?

Thanks!

 

Restore files after damaged hard drive

My hard drive died and was replaced by Dell. Fortunately (I think) my files were backed up to a Seagate external drive and I can find no clear instructions on how to restore/move my files correctly to my new hard drive.

I have the Seagate dashboard but it doesn't seem to find my files.

Are there specific steps? I suppose I could drag and drop the photos and music but I have other files, programs and information that I would like restored back like the original.

Any suggestions?

 

Free hard drive backup/restore program?

I am looking for a free (freeware) program that will back up and restore a hard drive. I'm looking to clone a few external hard drives. If the program will backup the used space instead of the whole drive this will be awesome! Thanks for any suggestions.