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Forum Discussion
Jennifer G.29
4 years agoHelpful | Level 6
No dialog box when connecting external HD?
I want to back up my external HD to my Dropbox account.
What should happen: When I connect the external drive, I should get a popup that asks if I want to back up the external drive, I select i...
Jennifer G.29
3 years agoHelpful | Level 6
Megan Walter Hello, OP here...one step deeper, I have another issue. I got the popup on a new drive and selected it so it backs up to Dropbox. Dropbox created the "synced drive" on dropbox.com--I can see it there. That's all good.
The problem is that it isn't backing up any of the files on the drive. Dropbox created the structure on dropbox.com, but it isn't filling it.
Right-clicking on it and looking at the menu options doesn't provide any solutions, although it does provide a clue: The dropdown says "don't sync to dropbox.com." It's giving me the option to stop syncing, because it's supposed to be syncing...yet it doesn't sync. What's going on now? Thanks.
- Megan3 years agoDropbox StaffHi Jennifer G.29, happy Monday!
Is your app running and syncing?
Can you check the syncing status, and let me know?
Thank you!- xuser063 years agoHelpful | Level 6
I'm having the same problem.
I have a Western Digital Passport drive, which I completely deleted and reformatted to HFS+, making sure it was non-encrypted. At first the dialog box popped up, so all seemed fine.
Then after re-copying the data to the external drive, Dropbox won't recognize the external drive to actually back it up.
I have re-started my machine, restarted the dropbox app & sync, I have ensured the "Show setup notifications when new external drives are plugged in." box is checked.
How can I get, or force the Dropbox app to recognize this drive so that I can get it to start backing up some of the folders on it?
There is nothing in any menu in the preferences etc. to do this, which makes me concerned that even if I am able to sync it at some point the app won't recognize the drive and all the time invested in syncing a bunch of data will be lost if I can't have a manual and sure-fire way to make sure the app is knowing to be getting data from a certain external hard drive.Can anyone please assist with a way to ensure an external drive dialog box comes up, as I've ensured everything is good to go on my end in terms of formatting etc.
- Jennifer G.293 years agoHelpful | Level 6Hi Megan, yes, it’s running and all the drives synced, supposedly. Somehow though, the space that’s used on Dropbox is about 200GB smaller than it should be. How can I find out if the external drive is completely backed up, and what isn’t backed up but should be? Thanks.
- Jay3 years agoDropbox StaffHi xuser06, could you check for a .dbxignore and .dropbox.device, which are in the root folder of your external drive, and delete them?
Afterwards, disconnect the drive and reconnect it.
@Jennifer G.29, try comparing the size of the external drive folder on the Dropbox site with the external drive via Explorer/Finder.
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