Your File History drive was disconnected for too long

File History is actually the system recovery tool unique to the Windows 10 systems. But some users are complaining about an annoying notification they are constantly seeing on their Action Center. According to them, ‘Your File History drive was disconnected for too long. To keep saving copies of your files, reconnect your drive, and then run a backup message is continuously disturbing their workflow. Don’t worry. Just follow these easy fixes to sort out the problem on your system.

 

Fix 1 – Reconnect the drive

If the backup drive is disconnected due to any reason, just connect the drive. The computer will detect the connected drive and resume the copying operation. You won’t see the annoying reminder anymore.

 

Fix 2 – Turn on the File History

You have to turn on the File History on your computer.

1. Press the Windows key+I keys.

2. Then, click on “Update & Security“.

 

Settings Update & Security

 

3. After that, click on the “Backup” on the left-hand side.

4. On the right-hand side, click on “Add a drive“.

You will see a prompt to choose an external drive. Choose the appropriate drive to start the backup process.

5.  Don’t forget to slide the slider of “Automatically back up my files” to “ON“.

 

Automatically On Min

 

If the computer still can’t detect the backup drive, disconnect the backup drive from your machine and connect it again.

To start the backup instantly, try these steps –



a. Open the Settings window. Access the “Updates & Security“.

b. Next, on the left-hand side look for the “Backup” settings.

c. On the right-hand pane, click on “More options” settings to access it.

 

More Options Backup Min

 

d. Then, click on “Back up now” to start backing up again.

 

Back Up Now Min

 

The backup process will now commence. This should fix your problem with your computer.

 

[

Alternate way

1. Just press the Windows key+R keys together.

2. After that, just write “control” in the terminal and hit Enter.

 

Control Run New Min

 

3. After the Control Panel screen prevails, click on the drop-down beside ‘View by:‘.

4. Then, click on you have to select the “Small icons” option.

 

Small Icons

 

5. Next, click on the “File History” from the list of control panel items.

 

File History Min

 

6. You will see the File History is switched Off.

7. To enable it, click on “Turn on” in the bottom corner of the window.

 

File His On Min

 

Just close the Control Panel screen.

]

 

Fix 3 – Repair the connected drive

Sometimes even if you have connected the drive and the computer is still not detecting it, follow these steps.

1. At first you have to plug in the drive to your system.

2. Then, you have to type “cmd“.

3. After that, right-click on “cmd” and click on “Run as administrator“.

 

Cmd Run Admin

 

 

4. Copy-paste and modify it accordingly and hit Enter to run the check-up on the disk.

chkdsk drive letter:/f

 

[Change the ‘drive letter:’ of this command with the drive letter of the connected drive.

Example – Suppose the drive letter of the drive is G:, then the command will be –

chkdsk G:/f

]

 

Chkdsk

 

Wait for the checkup process to complete.

 

Fix 4 – Turn off File History

The best solution for this issue is to turn off the File History settings on your computer.

1. At first, you have to press the Windows key+R keys together.

2. Then, just write “control” in the terminal and hit Enter.

 

Control Run New Min

 

3. Once the Control Panel opens up,  just click on the drop-down beside ‘View by:‘.



4. Then, click on you have to select the “Small icons” option.

 

Small Icons

 

5. Next, click on the “File History“.

 

File History Min

 

6. You will see the File History is switched ON.

7. To stop it, click on “Turn off” in the bottom corner of the window.

 

File History Off Min

 

Once you have turned the settings to ‘Off’, you can close the Control Panel screen.

8. Now, press the Windows key+I keys together.

9. Then, click on the “Update & Security” settings to access it.

 

1 Settings Windows Update

 

10. Now, on the left-hand side look for the “Backup” settings.

11. On the right-hand pane, click on “More options” settings to access it.

 

More Options Backup Min

 

12. Scroll down through the more options screen until you can see the ‘Backup to a different drive’ setting.

13. Just click on “Stop using drive” to stop the backup process completely.

 

Stop Using Drive Min

 

There is another step still left to complete the process.

 

STEP 2 – Delete the particular appdata

You have to delete the ‘File History’ appdata from your computer.

1. First of all, open File Explorer on your computer.

2.Once the File Explorer opens up, click on “View” on ht eme

3. Then click on “Options“.

 

View And Options Min

 

4. In the Folder Options window, go to the “View” tab.

5. Henceforth, check the option “Show hidden files, folders, and drives“.

 

Showhiddenfiles

 

6. After that, click on “Apply” and then on “OK“.

 

Apply Ok Min Min

 

7.  Now, go to this location –

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows

 

[%username% is your user name on this machine.]

8. Right-click on the “File History” folder and click on “Delete” to remove it.

 

File History Del

 

Once you have deleted the folder, close the File Explorer window.

 

Fix 5 – Moving files into a new drive

If you move the files from the existing drive to a new drive, this problem will stop occurring.

1. First of all, press the Windows key+R keys together.

2. After that, type “control” in the Run terminal and hit Enter.

 

Control Run New Min

 

3. Control Panel will open up. just click on the drop-down beside ‘View by:‘ and then click on “Small icons“.

 

Small Icons

 

4. After that, click on the “File History“.

 



File History Min

 

6. On the left-hand side, click on the “Select drive“.

 

Select Drive Min

 

7. Follow the instructions mentioned here and click on “Change your File History drive“.

8. If you want to set a device that is on the network, click on “Add network location“.

 

Add Network Location Min

 

9. Now you will see a prompt asking for permission whether to copy the existing backup files to the new drive.

10. Click on “Yes” to ascertain.

You can toggle the duration for keeping the files in File History.

 

NOTE

Sometimes the File History takes up an extra amount of space just to backup older, obsolete files to the drive. If you want to avoid it, follow these steps-

1. Open File History from Control Panel as instructed before.

2. Once the File History opens up, click on the “Advanced settings“.

 

Advanced Settings Min

 

3. Here you will notice two drop-down settings.

a. Save copied files – The time interval of taking the backup of the files from your machine to the drive.

b. Keep saved versions – This setting defines how many days you want to preserve the backup files before the system automatically removes those.

Adjust these settings according to your preference.

3. Click on “Save changes“.

 

Save Copied Files Save Changes Min

 

This way you can limit the time of how many days the backup files are to be preserved and save space in the backup directory.

 

Fix 6 – Re-sign into the network

Sometimes the backup network goes under maintenance. This is more prevalent in case if the backup is stored on a network location. In that case, just enter your network credentials to re-sign into the network.

1. Click on the search box and type “File History“.

2. Then, click on the “Enter network credentials” from the search results.

3. After that, type your network credentials (user name and password) in the Windows Security pop-up and log in to the network location.

This should have fixed your problem.