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Forum Discussion

sixstringbuzz's avatar
sixstringbuzz
Helpful | Level 6
4 years ago

I told Dropbox to not backup an external drive; now I've changed my mind

The subject pretty much says it all! I'm on a Mac and I connected an external drive (formatted HFS+). A popup came up asking if I wanted to backup this drive to Dropbox and I said no. Now I'd like to...
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Desktop
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  • sixstringbuzz's avatar
    sixstringbuzz
    4 years ago
    Hello!

    I had reinstalled the app already (though I’m not sure I did a full uninstall first) but in the end I had some spare time and so I transferred the files from one external drive to another then reformatted the drive so it would trigger a new request to backup. This worked. As a suggestion, it seems like there should be some manual way to tell Dropbox to backup a drive after originally indicating not to and not to ask again.

    Thanks!
Pedrohko's avatar
Pedrohko
New member | Level 2

I was battling to solve same issue and solution that worked for me:

1. Control Panel> Hardware and Sound>Devices and Printers

2. Remove External Hard Disk

3. Eject Hard Disk

4. Plug it back in

 

All done with dropbox running and open on the background, and boom, it triggers the pop-out "Do you want to backup your external drive?"

 

Syncing...

GreatLand1959's avatar
GreatLand1959
Helpful | Level 6
3 years ago

While this may be helpful for Windows users, since the original poster is on a Mac (as are others), this doesn't help there. And so far, no one seems to have an answer for the Mac folks. It seems that even the Dropbox folks don't have a clue. Which sadly is about par for the course these days when it comes to support from tech companies.

  • runemadsen's avatar
    runemadsen
    Explorer | Level 4
    3 years ago

    I'm having the same problem. Are you seriously telling me that there's no way in the Dropbox settings to enable backup on an external drive, except to nuke all my data on the external drive and reformat it? What is going on? Dropbox want us to use this functionality for our most sensitive data? I honestly cannot believe this.

    • GreatLand1959's avatar
      GreatLand1959
      Helpful | Level 6
      3 years ago
      I was able to copy a hidden file from a drive that IS being backed up to a drive DB was NOT backing up and that seems to have solved my problem. But I’m on a Mac so I don’t know if ot is applicable to other operating systems.
      • LagerFan's avatar
        LagerFan
        Helpful | Level 5
        3 years ago

        What was the hidden file you copied? Having the same issue but can't see anything obvious - even the reformat option isn't working for me.

         

        Some option to reset the list of external drives in preferences or similar would be ideal.

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