My PC crashed 3 weeks ago. I had Intuit Data Protect for my QB company file, personal docs and pics. On new PC, IDP won't restore pics!! How do I access old back ups?

I'll share the steps oh how you can restore old files including your personal files saved outside of QuickBooks, cslough.

Let's open IDP and look for the pictures that you need to restore. Here's how: 

1. Open Intuit Data Protect from your task bar.
2. Select Restore from Backup. 
3. Look and select the files that you need to restore. You will see all the versions of your files available for restoring. 
4. Click Continue and restore. 

Let me also share these articles about IDP for more details: 

• Open Intuit Data Protect to check Backup Status, view Backup History, or change Backup Settings
• Common questions about Intuit Data Protect

If you can't still restore the old pictures and files, please contact our Technical Support Team so they can help you further with this. Here's how: 

1. Go back to QuickBooks and click the Help menu.
2. Select QuickBooks Desktop Help.
3. Click Contact Us.
4. Let them know that you need make to make adjustments in your payroll records. 
5. Click Continue, then select if you want to schedule a callback.

Keep us posted how it goes or please reply below if you have other questions. I'll jump right back and offer my help again.

Thanks for the reply.  I have done all of what you stated, twice.  Here is more information: 

Once I got my new PC up and running, I reinstalled Quickbooks and opened up my Intuit Data Protect.  I could see all of my past backups and I selected to restore my QB company files, my personal documents and my  personal photos, as well as my desktop items.  

Only QB restored, and it took FOREVER (hours).  I thought something might be wrong, so I tried again, only selecting ONE category at a time to restore (documents, then photos, then desktop, etc).  It worked better... taking just a few min per category. QB restored completely.  My documents were recovered.  It *appeared* my photos were recovered at first... all was going great!  I even saw my photo files back on my new PC.  

A day later, when trying to finish up and restore my desktop items, I noticed that nearly ALL of my photos were now missing...  I mean, a few (maybe a dozen folders and then a couple dozen random photos) were in my Pictures folders, but everything else was GONE!  My documents were still all in the folder I had restored them to, and my QB was fine...  where did all my pictures go?! (This is YEARS of family and kids' pictures...and honestly far more valuable to me than any of the other stuff...which is why I have paid for this service for years!)  

Anyway - going back to the "restore from backup" section in IDP - the only backups shown are ones that have been done on this new PC since I set it up.  NO PREVIOUS back up files are present - and those are the ones that would have my photos!!!  What is going on?  Another strange thing is that the very first attempt at doing my online backup with IDP on my new pc on 1/27/20, showed that it successfully backed up my QB company files, but could not backup the documents, photos, or desktop.  All subsequent back ups (I do them every couple of days) show a successful QB back up and don't even show an attempt at anything else.  So IDP lost all my old photos, and won't back up anything except QB now.  I am incredibly confused.  

I also did try to chat with someone about this issue via the Help page/section through my QB desktop Held pages a few days ago.  I was on chat for an hour, with 3 different reps, and each time, after explaining in detail the issue and them starting to assist, the IDP server cut them off and gave me a new person as if we had just opened a new chat window ("Hello, I'm Ben, how may I help you today?") . It was incredibly frustrating and confusing...and the new rep had no idea I had even been chatting with someone else for the last 20 min.  I did that 3 times in an hour and then disconnected and demanded a phone number since the chat feature clearly was malfunctioning.  

Also to note: I have read all of the forum and help pages I can find so far regarding this.  I have done a myriad of things to try to help "fix" my IDP and honestly have no idea what is going on at this point, other than I have paid for this service for years and when I finally needed it, it has failed and lost all my children's photos.  I am super upset.  :(  PLEASE HELP!!!  Yes, both my QB and IDP are up to date.  I don't believe my Windows firewall is the issue, and I did add the websites to the trusted sites in security settings, etc...  

Hi, cslough.

QuickBooks Desktop has a feature called Auto Data Recovery (ADR). This feature will automatically make a local backup copy of your company file for you. You may see an additional folder show up on your computer, with a few new files. This is the QuickBooks Auto Data Recovery folder, and it will show up on its own.

For detailed steps and instructions, you can refer to this article: Recover lost data with QuickBooks Auto Data Recovery.

Also, you can read the following resources to know more about this feature and its processes:

• Understanding QuickBooks Auto Data Recovery.
• QuickBooks Data Services FAQ.

If you're still unable to recover the files and other personal information, I'd suggest getting in touch with our QuickBooks Desktop Support. All account-related concerns need to be directed to our phone support for security purposes.

If there's anything else I can help you with, please let me know. I'd be more than willing to lend you a hand.

thank you for your assistance.  Quick question before I embark on this process:  Does the Auto Data Recovery ALSO recover files NOT pertaining to the QB files?  Perhaps that question is answered in the informational sheet you provided (which I am yet to read over, but will before starting the next recovery attempt).  Just want to be sure we are understanding that I already recovered all of my QB data and files, as well as personal PC files...  just missing (sporadically) are most of my personal photos stored on the previous computer which were also being backed up by the Intuit Data Protect, yet not restored and no longer showing in any of the back up histories (in fact, no back up history files are shown prior to the ones on this new PC...odd)  

Hi there, @cslough,

I can share a few insights about the Data Recovery option in QuickBooks.

The IDP service will create backups for your data files and folders stored in QuickBooks. This is to safeguard the information against data loss, theft, file corruption, data deletion, fire, cyber-attacks through malware, viruses, malicious bugs, and more.

The Data Recovery tool will only recover lost or corrupted QuickBooks data which is backed up by the Intuit Data Protect service. Here are the list of files you can retrieve using this utility:

• Lost transactions for a certain Company file.
• Last few hours of transactions with a copy of both the Company file and the Transaction Log file.

You can read through the articles provided by my colleague RoseMarjorieA. See this:

• Recover lost data with QuickBooks Auto Data Recovery.
• Understanding QuickBooks Auto Data Recovery.
• QuickBooks Data Services FAQ.

You can also get help from our Technical Support Department for further assistance. I know you already contacted them, however, only our phone support can check your account with us and can help you restore the file correctly.

Here's how to contact us:

1. Go to the Help menu.
2. Choose QuickBooks Desktop Help.
3. Tap the Contact us button.

Kindly update me on the result of the call. I want to ensure everything is working well for you, and I'm here to provide further assistance and insights. Have a great day!

Thanks for the reply.  That is quite frustrating then, as I had purchased and paid for service from IDP for years which specifically also INCLUDED back up of files NOT pertaining to QB (as in, any files on my computer I wished to be backed up).  IDP had boxes to check if I also wanted Photos, Desktop files, Documents, etc backed up ALONG WITH the Quickbook files.  This seems to be false and led me to a false sense of security.  I watched, for YEARS, my children's photos be backed up, correctly.  They were marked with the little check mark beside them also indicating they had properly backed up.  Then, now that I need them, they are missing.  I will also state again that on my first attempt to recover all of my files, I opened IDP on my new PC, and ALL of the expected categories (Quick books company files, Photos, Documents, and Desktop) were ALL present and available to "Recover".  It was only after going through those steps, in actuality recovering all QB, Documents and Desktop items, that I saw that only a handful of my backed up photos reappeared.  So clearly it WAS backing them up, I was told IDP was backing them up, and now 10 years of my children's photos are missing!!!  This is QUITE distressing.  

It seems nobody here knows what to do, so I will call Intuit support tomorrow.  Hopefully someone knows how to fix this huge error by IDP.  

The information provided by my colleagues are the necessary steps to fix your issue, Cslough.

You may want to contact our technical support. This way, an agent can take a better look at your backups. You can follow Jen_D steps on how you can reach out to our support. 

You can also check the references about IDP my colleagues shared.

Feel free to get in touch to us if you have other concerns. We're just here to help you.

Ok, I may be misunderstanding then.  The Auto Data Recovery will also recover my photos stored?  As in, it does more than just recover QB files?  That is what I am not understanding from the replies.  I would be thrilled if that is what you are saying.  :)  

Hi there, cslough. 

The Auto Data Recovery feature works if these photos were attached to a transaction in QuickBooks. I still suggest reaching out to our Phone Support Team so they can help you get back your data. 

Let me provide the steps again on how to connect with us:

1. Select Help from the menu.
2. Click QuickBooks Desktop Help.
3. Tap the Contact us button and enter your concern that you wanted to recover some files and photos from the previous years. 
4. Click Continue and choose to either Chat or Call us. 

Let me know if you need anything else. Thanks!

I'm reading all this information because my computer crashed also and I'm trying to pull up the back up from another computer. Don't know if I have to reinstall quickbooks to the new computer or not. Anyway that last answer seems ridiculous if it's saying what I think it is. A photo can only be retrieved if it attached to a transaction in quickbooks. seriously? That makes no sense. How and why would a photo be attached to a qickbooks transaction when it's family pics? Seems crazy to me.

Thanks for joining this thread, @Choosingjoy2day.

Chiming in to share some insights about your backup copy retrieval. 

If you need to restore the backup file into the new computer, you need to reinstall QuickBooks there. Otherwise, you can copy the backup in a USB stick and restore it on the location where you want to use QuickBooks.

I'll be sharing some links to help you with the process:

• Install QuickBooks Desktop

• Restore a backup of your company file

Visit us again anytime if you have other concerns with restoring or finding backups in QuickBooks Desktop. I'll always be right here to help. Have a good one!