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Forum Discussion
sixstringbuzz
5 years agoHelpful | Level 6
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 explore that service but I can't figure out how to turn backup on for this drive now that I've dismissed the popup.
Is there a way to turn backup on for this drive other than reformatting it?
- 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!
64 Replies
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- LagerFan4 years agoHelpful | Level 5
Well I've still had no luck with this but I did solve one mystery. The reason the reformat option wasn't working in my case was because I formatted my USB as an encrypted external drive ... so I guess that's another big limitation here, i.e. no support for encrypted external drives?
- GreatLand19594 years agoHelpful | Level 6I guess there is *SOME* Logic behind not backing up encrypted drives, but I would thought a better option would have been to give the user the choice, not presume to make it for them.
- magino504 years agoExplorer | Level 3
Also looking for a solution of this, has anyone came forward?
I have an external disk where I once said that I dont want to back it up, but now I changed my mind.
How to reset the Dropbox notification and make it back up my hard disk?
- biketocamp4 years agoHelpful | Level 5
same issue. is there really no way to reset this list of drives that one chose to not backup, but would now like to backup?
- lyndallm4 years agoHelpful | Level 5
Hi Megan,
Following up on this thread as its marked as solved but it isn't actually a fix. I am not willing to buy a second hard drive just to copy the contents across and then back - and no one else in this thread has been able to get any answers either.
Can you please clarify how to make the pop up reappear?
- isabellarodriguez4 years agoExplorer | Level 4
I had a backup that started to have some issues and deleted it. I've now decided to do a new one but when I connect my external hard drive to my Macbook, there's no dialog box suggesting to do a backup. I've tried reconnecting the drive multiple times, reinstalling the DP app, but none of these things have worked so far. Is there any other way I can do a backup without depending on that dialog box? Or is there any way to do the backup?
- isabellarodriguez4 years agoExplorer | Level 4
I had a backup that started to have some issues and deleted it. I've now decided to do a new one but when I connect my external hard drive to my Macbook, there's no dialog box suggesting to do a backup. I've tried reconnecting the drive multiple times, reinstalling the DP app, but none of these things have worked so far. Is there any other way I can do a backup without depending on that dialog box? Or is there any way to do the backup?
- Megan4 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey all, happy Friday!
If anyone is still facing this, Have you checked if the app is running on your end?
Also, feel free to share with me the storage of the external drive and the space it occupies.
Let me know more, and I'll be happy to get back to each and every one of you. - lyndallm4 years agoHelpful | Level 5Hi Megan,
The app is definitely running as my whole computer is backed up and there is more than enough storage space. The issue is that the dialog box doesn’t reappear after the very first time it popped up to allow me to configure external back up - not a sync issue. I just don’t even have the option to set up sync. - lyndallm4 years agoHelpful | Level 5I’ve done all the suggested things like uninstalling/reinstalling the app, disconnecting/reconnecting the drive, restarting etc - but until the pop up reappears there’s no way to set up the backup. Your help would be appreciated as this is obviously an issue affecting everyone and the ‘solution’ verified in this forum is actually more or less just to get a new hard drive which is ridiculous.
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