Adding new drive

[slrellison]

I intend to install a new drive under Win 10. My dropbox files are all on D:.  The new drive will appear as an empty drive D:, reallocating the old D  drive as E:, so after putting in the new drive, my current dropbox folder will appear to be on drive E:

How do I

a)  Make sure Dropbox does not think I’ve deleted all my files and propagate that to the cloud?

b) Tell dropbox where its existing folder has ‘moved’ to  (the files will now be on E:) so I can ask dropbox to move them to the new D  drive?

[Rich · Accepted solution]

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@slrellison wrote:

How do I

a)  Make sure Dropbox does not think I’ve deleted all my files and propagate that to the cloud?

b) Tell dropbox where its existing folder has ‘moved’ to  (the files will now be on E:) so I can ask dropbox to move them to the new D  drive?

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a) Uninstall Dropbox.

Install the new drive and move your existing drive to E.

b) Reinstall Dropbox and when selecting the location for your Dropbox folder, select the folder ABOVE your existing Dropbox folder. If your Dropbox is in E:\Dropbox, you want to select E:\. If your Dropbox is in E:\Data\Dropbox, you want to select E:\Data. Dropbox should recognize that you have an existing folder and confirm that you want to use it.

Once finished, Dropbox will begin to index your files. This will take a while, especially if you have a lot of data, and will appear to be uploading and downloading as it does do. Be patient and LET IT WORK. You cannot bypass this process.

[slrellison]

Thanks for this - very helpful.

I was hoping to avoid an install/install cycle - but I'm not _that_ surprised if it's the only safe way of preventing an accidental 'sync to empty'.

Wouldn't it have been nice if DropBox had worked out that when they tell you you current drive is getting low on space, you might just want to add a new drive ... and if it doesn't find its data where it expected, to just ask if it's been moved ?

<sigh>