Windows 10: Windows 10 File History Failed Silently

I just went to restore a file and to my surprise I discovered that File History hasn't made a backup of any files since 25 May 2018.


All the settings are correct and the drive is correctly connected - in fact it readily offers me backups until 25 May.


It is set to backup hourly and to keep backups until space is needed, currently there is nearly 872 free on the 2TB backup drive.


In the past I had plenty of problems with File History 'losing' its settings when the backup was full, instead of deleting files and creating space, but always got a warning (this is why I got a larger backup disk).


Luckily I have 'straight'; backups as well but these are not as frequent and don't have the convenience of file history for restoring individual files.


I have set it to run manually and will be checking it daily.


Can anyone explain what might have caused this? It was some time after the huge feature update on 14 May. I have no updates showing between then and early June.

:)

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

• Open a new Explorer window.
• Click View in the ribbon.
• Click Options.
• Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
• Click OK

credit to Lifehacker.

 

File History not backing up any files

Hello Victor

Thank you for the response. I had already checked that thread, but it hasn't helped me:

• The thread deals with Windows 8's implementation of File History, which is somewhat different to that of Windows 10.
• Most of the thread deals with setting up File History (which I have already done, precisely following the recommended steps). The third link in the thread might have been useful since it appears to link to a page that deals with troubleshooting File History
  (as opposed to setting it up), but unfortunately the link is dead.

Any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

File History Physical Connected But Not Electronic

Hello Candun,

Thank you for posting your concern in Microsoft Community and welcome to the Windows 10 Family.

From the description provided, I understand that File History is not recognizing the external USB expansion drive, even though the drive had worked initially and it was behaving normally in File Explorer.

This issue may occur if any of the backup in the drive you are backing up is corrupted or the library is corrupted.

Please follow the below suggested methods and check if it helps to resolve the issue.

Method 1

1. Open File History and click Select Drive. Select a different drive other than the one that is failing to be recognized. you can consider adding an extra internal HDD to your PC in this situation.

2. Go to the external USB drive that wasn't being recognised, find the File History folder and rename it to "File History.old" or delete it.

3. Go to your C:\Users\your user folder\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows, find the File History folder and rename it "File History.old" or delete it.

4. Re-open File History, click Select drive and select the original USB drive that was not being recognised. The drive should now set up normally and start operating.

5. Delete the File History folder on the drive used in step 1

Method 2

This issue may happen due to system file corruption. I suggest you to run System file checker. System File checker (SFC) scan is done to check if there are any corrupted system files that could be causing this issue. Kindly follow
the below given steps:

• 
  Press Windows key + X, select
  Command prompt (Admin) to bring up elevated Command prompt.
  
• 
  In Command prompt type
  sfc/scannow and press enter.
  

• Restart the computer.

If no corrupted system files were found in the previous state, then I suggest you to try the following steps to employ the DISM command lines:

• 
  Open command prompt by pressing Windows key + X and selecting “Command prompt admin”.
  
• 
  In command prompt, type the following commands and press Enter after each command:
  

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

• 
  Close the command prompt and restart the PC and check if it works.
  

Also refer: What if something goes wrong in File History?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/what-something-goes-wrong-file-history

(Note: Applies to windows 10)

Hope the above information was helpful. If you need further information, feel free to write to us and we would be happy to help you.

Thank you.