Migrating to a new PC

[Alan41]

I have bought a new PC and migrated all the files from my old PC to my new one. 

I had Dropbox on my old machine, and had synced all my local files onto it. I want to do the same on my new machine. 

I have installed Dropbox on the new machine, and it has started to sync the files that it finds there. However, the files are duplicates of the ones on the old machine, so my Dropbox is filling up with second copies from the new machine of the files it had synced from the old one. 

Help! How do I set up Dropbox so that it will sync new files that I store, but not all the old ones that it already has?

[Jay]

Hi @Alan41, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

When you migrated the files across, did you copy them into a Dropbox folder you created, or onto another location?

Are you requesting that the Dropbox desktop application detects your migrated files to prevent re-syncing the same files again?

This will help me to assist further!

[Alan41]

I migrated the files from the C Drive on my old computer to the C Drive on my new computer. I had synced the files from my old computer to Dropbox, and now want to sync any new files that I add to my new C Drive to that image on Dropbox. 

Does that make sense?

[Alan41]

So, yes I want  the Dropbox desktop application to detect your migrated files to prevent re-syncing the same files again?

[Jay]

Do you have a custom location for the Dropbox folder, or did you leave it as the default location?

[Alan41]

No, I have a number of folders, and some individual files, in my default Dropbox location.

[Hannah]

Hey @Alan41, just to be clear on this, at the moment, do you have two Dropbox folders on your computer?

One you migrated from your old PC and the new, default Dropbox folder that was created, when you installed the app, right?

Have you allowed the app to finish syncing your Dropbox files in the new Dropbox folder?

[Alan41]

No @Hannah . I have two computers and one Dropbox folder, accessible from each of them. 

I am trying to set up my new computer, with Dropbox on it, so that it works the same as my old one used to do. Then I will be able to turn off my old computer and start using the new one.

[Hannah]

Thanks for clarifying, Alan!

If that's the case, all you need to do is install the Dropbox application on your new computer and allow it to sync your files to the new computer.

If all the files in your old Dropbox folder are accessible when using our website, it means they're synced with your account.

So, the application will simply download and sync them to your new computer's hard drive.

[Alan41]

So, to be clear (I hope),

I have two Dell PCs, an old one and a new one. I have Dropbox installed on each of them, and have migrated the contents of the C Drive from the old to the new, using Dell's Dell Migrate Tool (DMT). 

Each PC has (as far as I can tell) only one Dropbox folder, at C:/users/agree/Dropbox.

The old one had a number of files and folders in that Dropbox. 

Once I had installed Dropbox on the new PC, it started to sync the files and folders. I noticed that it seemed to be duplicating the files: each file appears as <name> and as <name> (1). I have now paused the sync on the new machine. 

The duplicated files appear in the Dropbox folder on both the old machine and the new machine. They also appear on the online folder on dropbox.com.

There is a second problem: on the new machine (but not on the old one or the website) the original file appears corrupted: the logo against the file has a yellow mark on the bottom left corner, and the corresponding app (Word or Acrobat) reports that it is corrupted and that it cannot open it. 

I have tried to uninstall Dropbox on the new machine and reinstall it. the Dropbox folder disappeared once I had done the uninstall, and reappeared once I had reinstalled it. Dropbox started to sync as normal, but it was synching both the first and the second (1) version of each file. 

What should I do to stop it duplicating the files, and why are the originals (but not the (1) copies) corrupted on the new machine (only)?