Question Bewildered with File History on Windows 11

[sonoferu]

New box with Windows 11. The guy who built it suggested I use File History for backups. I have a nice new 2TB Seagate external drive, so I set up File History and it ran nicely. I already had a thumb drive running so it got the letter E: and then the external drive became F: Then I did something apparently stupid.

I thought it would be nice to have the external drive be the first drive after C: and D: so I pulled the thumb drive and external drive and rebooted, then put just the external drive back in, which woke up as E:

But in File History it told me it did not recognize the ext drive, and that was the beginning of most of the day on this. All I can think is that File History locks onto something in a drive when it's first set up, and when you make any change to things, it breaks and can't be put back together again, like old Humpty Dumpty. I've googled for everything, and read zillions of questions in forums all over, tried everything everybody has suggested can be tried, from formatting to changing USB ports to trying every setting ever set.

So is there someone here who knows how File History actually works underneath, and can spell it out? I'm at my wits' end, and have been for hours.

Sorry to sound whiny, but this is something I was not prepared to run into, and is baffling, and I'm tired and frazzled.

Thanks

SonOfEru

 

[C1]

"File History, System Image, Backup and Restore in Windows 10 are partially broken and they are not being actively maintained or developed. Microsoft is planning to remove them in a future release. You are seeing the effects of this. You should switch to a third party solution such as Macrium Reflect (Free). "

Redirecting

A guess is that the File History app has registered your external HDD somewhere in the Windows registry. Search the registry to see if you can find File History stored/registered parameters. If so, attempt to make the change there.

Offhand, I dont think running an "SCF /scannow" will reset "File History", but you could try that easy enough.

Good luck

 

[sonoferu]

It's been a long time since I went into the registry. I'm not ignorant of it but ....

I did Find for "File History" and got quite a handful of hits, like at

Computer\HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1393801971-2825511811-1734176295-1001\Software\Classes\Local Settings\ImmutableMuiCache\Strings\52C64B7E

So I wouldn't know which one would do what, or what to enter as a value.

And I had seen the quote about switching to 3rd party solutions. BTW, the Macrium Free is now a free trial, not really free any more.

And I had EaseUS ToDo on my old Windows 7 box so I'm familiar with that

So thanks

 

[sonoferu]

/SCANNOW found nothing

 

[C1]

Pretty tricky problem. Lots of paths & things to try.

The best thing I could find to try is a Reset File History to Default

Reset File History to Default in Windows 10

How to Reset File History to Default in Windows 10

www.tenforums.com

Good luck

 

[sonoferu]

Well, the builder suggested clearing the external drive, then reset the drive letter to X: so other drives won't get in behind it. After a Restart, the drive became available in "Select drive" and it was able to run File History successfully. I still don't understand what that did under the covers, but I'm OK with it

 

[Super Spartan]

New box with Windows 11. The guy who built it suggested I use File History for backups. I have a nice new 2TB Seagate external drive, so I set up File History and it ran nicely. I already had a thumb drive running so it got the letter E: and then the external drive became F: Then I did something apparently stupid.

I thought it would be nice to have the external drive be the first drive after C: and D: so I pulled the thumb drive and external drive and rebooted, then put just the external drive back in, which woke up as E:

But in File History it told me it did not recognize the ext drive, and that was the beginning of most of the day on this. All I can think is that File History locks onto something in a drive when it's first set up, and when you make any change to things, it breaks and can't be put back together again, like old Humpty Dumpty. I've googled for everything, and read zillions of questions in forums all over, tried everything everybody has suggested can be tried, from formatting to changing USB ports to trying every setting ever set.

So is there someone here who knows how File History actually works underneath, and can spell it out? I'm at my wits' end, and have been for hours.

Sorry to sound whiny, but this is something I was not prepared to run into, and is baffling, and I'm tired and frazzled.

Thanks

SonOfEru

This is the best and fastest way to backup data, been doing this for years:

 

[inquirerGeneral]

This is the best and fastest way to backup data, been doing this for years:

is that a legitimate app?