How do I stop dropbox from continually trying to upload my whole c drive?

[deannep]

For no apparent reason, and not requested by me, Dropbox is trying to copy my entire c drive. I am going crazy and have tried every suggestion I have seen here to stop it uploading and it just keeps doing it. I can suspend/pause but that is no help as there will be things I want to upload. It is using up all my memory so my computer keeps crashing and it is also crippling our internet for other things. 
I am using a windows 10 laptop. It says it will take 2+ days to complete. But as there are files which Dropbox doesn't allow (.ini etc) I think it will just keep churning away forever.

A lot of things I did have on dropbox actually seem to have disappeared during this process.
What am I doing wrong?

[Walter]

Hi @deannep, sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

It sounds like you may have enabled the computer backup feature on your computer.

Could you have a look here and let me know if that's the case?

Thanks!

[deannep]

As far as I can see, I do not have backup set, which is why I am so confused. Is there somewhere else I should be looking?

This started happening about the same time Dropbox started asking when you plugged in a USB whether you wanted to backup (always a no) but it has never asked me whether I want to backup the whole computer.

I have paused syncing for the moment until I can work out what to do, ask every thing I have tried has not worked. But I will be needing to sync some selected files so I can decommission the computer I am on, so I really need to find how to stop this upload.

It also has at the same time uploaded over 30,000 images (so far) into my photos folder - most of them thumbnails from iTunes and things I have looked at on the Internet. It is crazy and makes photos unusable on my tablet. . I tried to remove these but it can't delete while it is doing the big upload.

[Jay]

Hi @deannep, it looks like the computer backup is no longer running on your device.

Could you confirm what system folders you see in the Dropbox folder, such as Desktop?

[deannep]

Hi Jay

you may have found the problem

I ran a search for ‘Desktop’ in the Dropbox folder on File Manager:

they are from backups of my old computer done to a portable HD by professionals when the hard disk died and I had it replaced with a solid state drive. The computer is now being replaced and I need the files in the backup so I uploaded the portable hard drive to Dropbox which was obviously a mistake. 

What should I do now?
If I delete the folder named 'from hardrive' from Dropbox, will that fix things?
What can I safely copy from the portable HD backup? Do I need to manually find the documents & music files on it and upload them (that will take a very long time)? 
How do I ensure that Dropbox does not try to backup my whole laptop in the future?
Thanks

[Jay]

If you don't want those files to appear in your Dropbox account, you can delete them from your account. 

You can upload specific files to the Dropbox folder manually. 

Dropbox doesn't have an option to backup your whole hard drive, only certain folders. Provided the computer backup is disabled, those folders won't get backed up to Dropbox.