Why my external hard drive can not be seen by Dropbox backup?

Question

I work with my WD Mypassport external hard drive. For safe, I backup it for the first time and then I hope it works. However, when I KEEP plugged in and restart, the dropbox backup said it could not detect the plugged in device(WD external hard drive) and could not backup. If I unplugged and plugged the external hard drive, dropbox will detect it. It really annoyed because the backup is so unstable and unsafe. Maybe there are some problem, I want the dropbox backup to detect my external hard drive whenever I use it. What is the Possible problem.

Moreover, the WD external hard drive works properly ANYTIME it plugged in. The only problem occurs when I try to have a backup with dropbox.

Thanks.

Windows11 latest, Intel i7 12700H

qihangZH · Answer

Dear Jay,

Yes, If connected, it will work properly. But it could not connect after take a lot of times in the condition I sent.

Besides, Dropbox(Basic function) could work will and sync real-time. The problems only occures in backup.

Some other problems may not relative with "connection" but the preference-selection subfolders, I think it is another problem and I will have another idea to share.

Jay · Answer

The external drive backup feature syncs files once every hour, after the drive is connected and sync. Did the drive sync correctly when it was connected?

qihangZH · Answer

Dear Jay,

Thank you! I will post what happens in my PC:

Firstly, before I open my PC, I plugged in my WD external harddrive. The dropbox desktop always start automatically.

Then we click the icon of backup, it shows:

But, we can assure that the "My passport" could work properly:

then we unplugged the WD external hard drive:

Then replugged in, it is so "amazing" that the dropbox will find the WD!

Besides, when we quit the dropbox and re-enter, it will meet the same problem too...

Hope for you reply!