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Forum Discussion
I used a USB device, reformatted it and now I can't restore my content.
I have been backing up a USB drive to dropbox for over a year, in total 96GB of music files.
I naturally assumed that since this was a 'backup' it provided the ability to restore the device should anything go wrong.
Now that I had a problem with the USB device and needed to reformat it, I find I am unable to restore the data.
There is no 'restore' function in Dropbox desktop app. I can't download the files because I get an error "Attempted to zip too many files". And I can't move the files from the Backup area to the main Dropbox in order to sync with desktop.
What's the point of making a backup if I can't restore the files to the device, without manually downloading tens of thousands of files one by one?
It seems like 'backup' just means a worse version of normal dropbox functionality.
Is there any solution to this?
RM
- Mark
Super User II
You dont manage Backups via the app. It is all done online
Have you looked at https://help.dropbox.com/organize/restore-dropbox-backup-files ?
Thanks for your reply. The problem is, the USB was corrupted and I reformatted it, and now when I plug it in dropbox does not recognise it as the same drive. As far as I can see, there is no option to restore the files from the old backup to the drive. There is only an option to 'download' files, and since there are so many, this is an extremely laborious process. And it is not even possible to download some of these folders because dropbox says there are 'too many files' or the download times out ("something went wrong").
To reiterate, the problem is exactly the one described here:
"
The Dropbox client has no "Restore" feature, unless it's the same computer & installation that you did the backup from.
The only way you can "access" (well, not really) the backup from another computer ist to download the whole thing via a webbrowser. Just that this doesn't work either, because that feature would provide the whole backup in one huge ZIP-File... but then fails doing so, because the backup is of course much too big to be provided via a ZIP-Download in the browser.
Dropbox has created a "Backup" that is unrestoreable by design. A backup that uploads data but provides no way to download it again. That is a whole new level of uselessness."
- Megan
Dropbox Staff
Hey rmackay, sorry to hear about that!
If the external drive is recognized as a new one, then the only option would be indeed to download the content locally, using the website.
If you wish, you can try downloading smaller bunches in order to avoid getting an error if there are too many files and folders there.
I hope this clarifies!
