Forum Discussion

guruuno's avatar
guruuno
Helpful | Level 6
2 years ago

Can't Backup an external drive

Dropbox Sync Errors I have been attempting to sync an external disk for weeks now, with no success.  Uninstalled, reinstalled (Dropbox), tried on a Mac, tried on Windows 10, and ultimately, got the O...
desktop
Dropbox Backup
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Hannah's avatar
Hannah
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
2 years ago

Hey @guruuno, I appreciate the info you gave me.

 

However, just to clarify, there are two ways of adding files from an external drive to Dropbox.

 

You can either manually copy them into your Dropbox folder, to actually sync them to your account, which means that the files will also take up hard drive space in order to sync.

 

Or you can choose to use our backup feature, to back up the external drive.

 

With backup, the files don't get moved to your internal hard drive, they just need time to get backed up and then they're only accessible from your backups page.

 

I'm assuming that you'd prefer the second way, so can you just confirm that you've used these steps to back up the drive? And are you having issues with this process?

 

Regarding the .dbxignore files, some external drives need to create log files to function. 

 

Dropbox ignores these to save space in your backup. To do so, it creates placeholder .dbxignore files that take up less storage space.

guruuno's avatar
guruuno
Helpful | Level 6
2 years ago

Followed to the teee-----will do again, for the umpteenth time and report back

  • guruuno's avatar
    guruuno
    Helpful | Level 6
    2 years ago

    No OneDrive is running, No iCloud is running, NO Google Drive is running, Dropbox just keeps backing up/failing 3 files, all of the previously referenced items, no changes, nada, zero, will not work.

    • Jay's avatar
      Jay
      Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
      2 years ago

      Hi @guruuno, thanks for the details. At this point, I'd recommend contacting the support team directly for them to investigate this matter in more detail on their end.

      • guruuno's avatar
        guruuno
        Helpful | Level 6
        2 years ago

        How, by copy/paste these items discussed here or is there a phone number to call?

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