Windows 10: File history exists on a separate drive but can't be seen after clean install of w10.

Hello and Happy New Year, all!


My girlfriend's PC was intermittently freezing after upgrading from w7 to w10 so I decided to do a clean install of w10. I first did both a FH backup and copied the c: drive contents, just in case, to a physically separate drive d:. I was following clean install instructions posted on this site. Install went fine but now I can't restore the File History from the d: drive. File Explorer shows the History Files ARE there but using w10 Restore process can't see them for some reason. It sees the drive and will write new FH data to the same drive but when I try to update from an older backup even, the History file I know is there does not show to choose from.


I have searched this site and many others for a solution yet nothing I have tried has been successful so far.


Any help will be much appreciated as I have been working this for about a full day now.


Cheers


PS: While typing this out, I remembered that I physically disconnected the d: dive during the clean install process, so it could not possibly be affected. Could this be the reason and will I need to reinstall w10 with both drives connected? I really hope not.

:)

 

File History Drive Full - Now What

Hi Don,

File History drive usually contains older versions of Windows on your PC. To clean your File History drive, we suggest that you follow these steps:

• Open the Control Panel (small icon view), and then click on the
  File History.
• On the left pane, click on Advanced settings.
• Click on the Clean up versions link in the Versions
  section. Note: The Clean up versions link will not be available if you don't have any File History versions available on currently selected drive.
  • 
    
    
• Select the time period of versions you want to delete, and then click on
  Clean up.
• File History Cleanup will now start discovering items for the specified time period, and delete them if available.
• If it didn't find any versions of your files that were that old, click on Close, and repeat step 4 above using a shorter time period if you like.
  If the cleanup completed successfully, click on OK.
• You can now close If the cleanup completed successfully, click/tap on OK.
• You can now close the windows.

Let us know if the steps above helped you to resolve your concern.

 

How to stop File History on the old drive and start File History on a new drive?

I use the external drive
for File History and have a lot of information there. I want to restart the File History process on a new drive and place the previous File History drive off-site.

Please suggest the steps to stop File History on the old drive and start File History on a new drive.

 

File History drive

Hi Joseph,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Community.

I would like to inform you that if your File History drive has been disconnected for too long, or it doesn't have enough space to save temporary versions of your files. To continue saving copies of your files, you'll need to reconnect your File History drive.
Plug in your external File History drive or reselect your network. You can start a backup manually or wait for the next scheduled backup or reselect the drive. Here is the steps:

To manually start a backup

• 
  Open File History by pressing Windows key> type File History
  > Click on File History.
  
• 
  Tap or click Back up now.
  

To reselect your drive

• 
  Open File History by pressing Windows key> type File History
  > Click on File History.
  
• 
  Tap or click Select drive.
  
• 
  On the Select a File History drive page, tap or click your current drive or network location, and then tap or click
  OK.
  

Hope it helps. Let us know if you need more help and we'll be glad to assist.