My Book Live Auto backup is not backing up new files

When I setup My Book Live on Windows 8 to backup my Picture files to the My Book Live Public drive it worked great. Now I have added new picture and a new folder on my Windows 8 PC but they are not getting backed up to My Book Live Public drive. Any ideas on why or what I am doing wrong? I also have my Macbook TimeMachine backing up to the same My Book Live and it is working great.

Any help would be appreciated.

What program are you using to backup your files?

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Just using the WD SmartWare that came with the my book live.

You can try exploring the smartware backup folder manually (smartware.swstor) to see if you can find the pictures. Smartware wont backup the picture if its open on another program. 

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Thanks… You are right all my pictures are there in the smartware backup folder (smartware.swstor) but how do I get my SHARED PICTURES folder updated? What other program would have them open? Is there anyway of determining which other PC or program would have it open? I am backup up the pictures from my Windows 8 PC to my MY Book Live. The only other way I access my pictures is from WD 2go and WD Photos from my iPad or my Android phone… if I shut down the other two devices should my SHARED PICTURES  get updated?

smartware is an auto backup.  The shared folders are just folders.  you manually drag/copy/manage those.  You can use a third party software to either backup to those, or sync those with a folder on your PC, and that would occur according to the settings of that software.

To update the shared pictures folder you need to do it manually by using copy/paste. Smartware will only save files to the .swstor folder. To do it automatically, try to find a backup/sync software that allows you to backup the pictures into the shared pictures folder.

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Ok so if I understand this when I first turned on Smartware and told it what files and folders I wanted backed up on my book live it create a snap shot copy of what was on my PC using  original folder names and file names. But for subsequent auto updates it creates the updates to smartware.swstor.

And to update the snap shot copy folders and files created, I need 3rd party software to copy/move the files from smartware.swstor to the snap shot copy folders that were originally created?

The first time that you use smartware it will create a folder (swstor), inside this folder it will copy all of the compatible files using the same folders names that you have in your PC, after that it will only backup the new files that you add or modify. Smartware will only use the backup folder, since the option to copy specific files to an specific location is not available, you need to find another backup program that allows you to do that or copy the files manually yourself.

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the smartware backup is a hidden folder.  You don’t just navigtate to it using network discovery or mapping, and you can’t get to it from the dashboard.

1st time booting up MBL:  no smartware hidden folders, no user-created folders.  Just default movie, music, etc folders.

When you run smartware, the first backup will take a while.  It backs up what you told it to to the hidden folders.

When you modify or update a file it will create a backup (and keep old versions if you opted for that).

You don’t have to do anything.

If you want to create folders on the MBL to have access from different computers, or for media streaming, etc, you can create those and map to them or manage them from the dashboard.  If you want a third-party software installed on your computer to sync with or backup to these user-create folders then give it a whirl.  It has nothing to do with smartware.

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Thank you both very much… I think I understand what’s happening now.