Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox 👨‍💻? Find out how to check here.

Forum Discussion

tonkotsu2's avatar
tonkotsu2
New member | Level 2
2 years ago

I cannot restore old external drive backup to reformatted drive

I backed up my SSD with "dropbox backup" to reformat it.   When I tried to restore it, the SSD that I reformatted is being recognized as a different storage, so I cannot restore it. What should I...
desktop
Dropbox Backup
Hannah's avatar
Hannah
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
2 years ago

Hey there, tonkotsu2, thanks for reaching out to us.

 

When you say that the drive is being recognized as a different storage, do you mean that the backup feature thinks that the reformatted drive is now a new/different drive?

 

Can you send us a screenshot of what you see when you connect the drive?

 

Thanks in advance.

tonkotsu2's avatar
tonkotsu2
New member | Level 2
2 years ago

Yes, the issue is that it's being recognized as a different storage. Even though it has the same name as the original SSD, in "Dropbox backup" it appears as "PortableSSD(1)" with the addition of "(1)".

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

    Hi tonkotsu2, if you reformatted your external hard drive, this means that it is no longer detected as the same drive as before, which is why there's a different backup being created. 

    • tonkotsu2's avatar
      tonkotsu2
      New member | Level 2
      2 years ago

      Sure, here is the translation:

      "If possible, please tell me how to restore it to a new SSD without needing to download anything."

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

        The only method to restore a Dropbox Backup is to download it from the site. 

         

        However, you can download it directly to an external drive instead of an internal drive.

About Create, upload, and share

Find help to solve issues with creating, uploading, and sharing files and folders in Dropbox. Get support and advice from the Dropbox Community.

The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X, Facebook or Instagram.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!