FreeAgent Products

[DB007]

People,

Don't count your hopes on this forum. I don't any moderators care to reply to the post. 

[JimInSRA]

I too am having this problem and lost several months worth of data.  GRRR!!!!.  I've looked through the documenation, searched the WWW and just can't find the solution.

To that end, I've just created a case w/ Seagate On-Line Tech Support.  I'll post a reply when and if I get one. 

[JimInSRA · Accepted solution]

FINALLY, A SOLUTION, it least it was the solution for me and kudos to Seagate support for pointing me in the right direction.  Note I said pointing me as the response was just a bit vague, but nowhere near as vague as documentation.

Apparently Seagate Manager creates a PC specific History folder calledappropriately enough, HISTORY.

The path is -  [Drive]:\SeagateBackup\[PC NAME]\History

Within this folder are a number of folders labeled Leveln wheren = a number. On my backup they are #'d 2-10.  How they are used or what files or foldersare put in which Leveln folder is not described in the documentation (at least I can't find it) and not in the help I received from Seagate, but I've asked for clarification.

As near as I can tell, files and folders that are deleted from the source drive, are moved to these folders on subsequent backups from the backup folderon the destination/backup drive.  In otherwords if you create a backup then delete files and folders from your PCs drive,the next time you back up, the files and folders you deleted on you hard drive, they will be moved from their location in the backup folder to the history\leveln folder(s). At least this is how I sum it up based on my findings.

Files from the history folder can be moved manually or by using Seagate manager to restore. Specific restore instructions (vaguely speaking) can be found in Seagate manager help under the heading "Restoring an Historical Version" 

As near as I can tell, there is no setting which will prevent this from happening.  If you're going to use Seagate Manager, the only solution is to understand this nuance.  If there are any Seagate moderators watching this forum and would like to correct me, please do. At least then we'll have the whole story. 

[Kirbloop]

I think the terms 'backup' and 'copy' are being confused all through this thread. 

A 'backup' is a snapshot of your selected source data.  Subsequent, scheduled backups are snapshots of changes to that data, thus, your backup mirrors the current revision of your selected source data.  When you delete a backedup file from its original location, you have changed that file.  The next scheduled backup will reflect that change.  The Seagate backup software, however, retains a history of 10 changed-data snapshots.  To save the deleted file, you must restore it before the 11th snapshot is created, otherwise it will be purged from your backup data.  

A 'copy' is simply a copy of a file.  You can store a copy of any file on your external hard drive (or any other storage device) by dragging and dropping.  The file copy won't change (unless you have enabled Sync) just because the original was changed/deleted.  But heed the warning by one of the posters, if a file is important to you, use more than one alternate storage device, in case one fails. 

[hahnex]

I'm having the exact opposite problem. Tech Support cannot help me. When I Sync, all the files I deleted from my PC are not deleting in Sync. I have my settings so that nothing is done automatically, I can see the list come up of all my "overwrites", and "new" files added, but the ones on the list that I know I've deleted are showing as "new". I have to uncheck the box so they are not added back onto my PC. They will continue to pop up each time I Sync, but always as "new", not "deleted". If I go into the drive's folders I can manually delete them, but I shouldn't have to do it that way. Anyone know what to do about this?

[ajcstr]

I had a situation where my hard drive crashed and I had an image from 6 mos ago which I restored so I probably have a lot of files on my Free Agent that are not on my computer.  I disabled the Free Agent manager from starting up, But do you think I am safe by renaming the SeagateBackup folder to "old seagatebackup" ?  I figure the program would not delete anything from there.

[onyxwolf]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm really really frustrated this morning, so forgive me.

Yesterday I backed up my entire "my documents" folder. I didn't drag and drop, I told it to do the backup. And everything backed up all fine. I deleted the stuff from my computer, because I'm desperate for space. Last night at 3am it ran it's usual timed backup. This morning, ALL of my pictures are gone. Anything text is still there. And all the picture folders are there, except they are all empty.

Anyone have any clue what might have happened?

I looked in the 'history' folder, and the now missing pictures aren't in there.

Now a few months ago I did do a drag and drop on the same set of folders, to test using it as a slave drive {didn't work, really upset about that too!}, and all of that is still there and the pictures are fine. But all my new pictures have not been backed up. {Thankfully some of them were still in my computer's recycling bin}.

I can't find a setting that says to not purge deleted files or anything to that effect either.

[aznmoni]

hi just want to thank you so much for your post and for your solution. I was so afraid i lost all my files because of this problem, but now i was able to find it in the history folder. Thank you so much!!

Monica

[rtankersley]

This is what I have found:

It is true that a change to a file results in the older file being put into a history folder.

It is true that "restore historical version" will find each of the changes up to 10 versions.

However: If I delete a file on the C drive I find:

1. The historical versions are still in the history folders.

2. "restore historical version" will not find the file.

3. I can use File Explorer to find the file and copy it back.

Restore historical version should be able to find that file.