what does “damaging the partition” mean?
Look at the partition as being the outer fence that surrounds your file structure. It’s what defines the size of your drive. If that gets damaged, the operating system won’t be able to tell what size your drive is, and will resort to asking you to start over again. When the partition gets damaged, your drive usually won’t show up on your Computer. Or, you will see it, but won’t be able to access it. At least that’s my understanding of it. Here is a link that explains it a little more.
http://www.ntfs.com/partition-recovery-concepts.htm
how is that different than damaging files?
Damaged files are just unreadable. You might see them, but they won’t open. There’s no recovering corrupted files.
If I by deleting a few folders on the passport, and then manually dragging them back over to the passport from the hard drive, in my computer… will that have damaged my backup? Cuz, that’s what I did. Will it only be those folders that are damaged? How are they damaged?
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by deleting folders on the passport and then manually dragging them. Once you delete something, it’s basically gone, unless you use data recovery software to recover it. If you mean “Cut” and “Paste” then yes it damages the backup. But only if you do that with a file or folder that’s in the SWSTOR backup folder. Outside the backup folder, you can move files and folders off, on, and around your drive without affecting your backup.
The reason the backup gets damaged is that SmartWare indexes all those files and folders, and if something gets moved or removed it can confuse the program.
If I ever want to delete some files or folders from my passport how do i do it without erasing all the files?
If they’re part of the backup, you don’t. You leave them alone. Anything inside that SWSTOR folder should never be touched. If you are copying and pasting data on to the passport outside of that folder, then you can do what you want. You won’t hurt the backup.
[edit]
My apologies to Wayne if I took over for him. I don’t normally do this.
