Clearing File History Drive

I too have just done a clean restart of File History, having just managed to break it by doing a partial Macrium Reflect restore.
My experience might alert others to what can happen.

Like the OP, I use Macrium monthly images to drive X:, with File History running at all times, also backing up to X:\.
My C: is 99% a system drive. I have moved all user top level folders to D:\Users. This has been fine for a couple of years.

My rationale was to be able use Macrium to roll back C: without D: if I don't like a software situation I've got into.

That happened for me recently with MalwareBytes.
I tried MB, didn't get on with it and uninstalled it.

Uninstalling MB did NOT restore my default Defender firewall properly, so I decided to roll back C:\, but not D:\, to 9th Sept...
...completely forgetting about File History, which is a system process that crosses the Drive boundaries and who knows where it holds its indexes or other data?

The result of the restore of C: without D: was a mess in the FH department when I looked a day or so later.

The backup FH folder had two subfolder trees for my PC, and no indication of which was in use. The latest backup according to FH was not the latest file. Clicking Run in Control panel appeared to run OK, but Restore personal file didn't show me the latest version in the relevant folder. Looking in the FH Backup folder, I found my Computer name present twice, with no indication of which was in use.
And then I found another large FH folder had been created in my drive E:.

At this point I freaked out when I should have examined the FH log, but I did not do so.
Instead I wiped every FH backup folder I could find, and restarted FH as if for the first time.
That suited my purposes.

Looking at the new log since has been informative, but of course I've lost the entries about the mess that made me restart FH afresh.

I also failed to switch FH off before the restart to do the Reflect Restore of C:\ without D:\.

Would that have given me a better result after the restore?
OR should I switch File History OFF somehow for the duration of each Reflect backup, so that the FH indexes on X: are finalised and inactive?

I'd like to see FH developed a bit further as suggested by the OP, but doubt if MS will want to do anything
I don't see TimeLine as useful for the purposes of my local backup by FHistory

spilly

spilly

spilly said:

I too have just done a clean restart of File History, having just managed to break it by doing a partial Macrium Reflect restore.
My experience might alert others to what can happen.

What a nightmare! I've never had to do a Macrium Reflect restore of my data volume. If I did, I might not think about the impact on File History. So it's good to be forewarned.

Now that I know about it, if I ever had to roll back my data volume using Macrium Reflect, I could roll back my File History volume to the same point, because I do monthly backups of each at the same time.

I've rolled back my system volume a couple of times, but that's been OK because both my data and File History are on separate volumes.

I use F H fairly frequently to look at a previous version of a source file I'm working on. It's good for that. But it has its limitations. It doesn't interact well with other backup methods.

@arnoldh
My setup is the same as yours
C: is my system drive; D: (or whatever) is my data drive

I found that rolling back C: without D: gave me the issues I describe.
As I have rolled back C: more than once, any of those rollbacks could have caused the things I describe.


My take-home lessons are to check FH is working as expected, both periodically and before and after any voluntary rollback.
Also examine the FH log for any problems detected.


From experience, FH is very much an unseen service that doesn't give you many notifications
I have found it reliable until recently I had reason to do these rollbacks of C: without D: