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Forum Discussion

sixstringbuzz's avatar
sixstringbuzz
Helpful | Level 6
5 years ago
Solved

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...
Computer Backup
desktop
Mac
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  • sixstringbuzz's avatar
    sixstringbuzz
    5 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!
runemadsen's avatar
runemadsen
Explorer | Level 4
4 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
4 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
    4 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.

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

      It doesn't work with the hidden file. I deleted all hidden files and still no luck. I also tried to scour the local Dropbox .db files in ~/.dropbox to see if I could find the entry, but no luck either. There is no way to do this unless you delete all your data from the HD and reformat it.

      • GreatLand1959's avatar
        GreatLand1959
        Helpful | Level 6
        4 years ago
        The file I mentioned should be in the root of an external drive that is being backed up by DB. If you don’t have one, I can send you a copy of mine to see if it will work. You do have to use Command-Shift-period to reveal those files.

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