Microsoft warns of data loss risk in Windows 11 for Dev Drive users

With the supposedly stable build of Windows 11 being problematic for many people, it is hardly surprising that there are more issues to be found in the Insider builds; it's pretty much a given. But not all problems are equal, and Microsoft has issued a warning about the latest release that could cause users to lose data.

The issue affects Windows 11 build 26052 which is available on both the Dev and Canary channels. Details of the cause of the problem have not been revealed, but Microsoft has released important information for anyone with a Dev Drive.

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The company has issued a warning that Dev Drives will be broken if Insiders perform a rollback. Quite why a rollback should result in a broken Dev Drive is not clear, but Microsoft is stressing the importance of backing up data.

There is no mention of the issue being investigated or that there is a fix on the way, but it is hard to imagine that this is not the case.

In a note added to the initial set of release notes for Windows 11 build 26052, Microsoft says:

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR DEV DRIVE USERS: Insiders on Build 26052 who have Dev Drives and might need to rollback will need to back up their Dev Drives BEFORE rolling back as rolling back will cause Dev Drives to break and data on them to be lost.

In addition to this confirmed issue, there are also reports from users about problems even getting Windows 11 build 26052 to install. There are complaints about the update green-screening and also the appearance of error code 0XC1900101. On top of this, there are complaints about problems with Sysprep, but Microsoft is yet to acknowledge any of these additional issues.

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