Changing hard drives deletes files in Dropbox

[bbeaucage]

Another user modified and added some files on Dropbox for Business.  My laptop syncs to that Dropbox share.

After the above changes and additions (which should have been synced to my laptop), I changed the hard drive on my laptop.  This is a secondary drive, not the boot drive.  It is the target for the Dropbox sync.  After the drive was swapped, I assumed the new drive would sync the files and folders as they were, but for some reason, the new files in the cloud were deleted and other files were restored to older versions.

If the new files didn't get synced, and never existed on my hard drive, why would the sync delete them from the cloud, if it never knew they existed?

[Mark]

Dropbox isnt designed to work like that - it isn't intended that you 'just swap hard drives'. Dropbox isn't intended, or designed, actually to even be installed on external drives. It is intended to replace them.

So when you have connected a different drive Dropbox has used the local database on that hard drive and viewed that as the most recent version of files and thus replicated that drives data across Dropbox. 

You may be able to roll it back at www.dropbox.com/events 

[bbeaucage]

Hi Mark, thanks for the reply.  It is not an external drive, just the second drive (D:) in the laptop.  Why would it view the local database as the master, and not what is actually in the cloud?

We did find the files to restore them, just concerned that  it may happen again if a hard drive is replaced in the future.

[Mark · Accepted solution]

If there is a Dropbox drive installed make sure you only connect to it via the app and after an install. 

That way it creates a new database when it happens. Dont try and change directories etc. or it'll get confused and use what it sees on the machine as most up to date. It usually compares both, but, as the computer is doing stuff 'most recent' its obv viewed that as master. 

[bbeaucage]

Great, thanks for the insight, much appreciated.