Document and data recovery after theft

September 1, 2011 6:08 AM

Stolen PC and back up to an external hard drive. How do I restore documents and media to a new PC from a back up?

Last week burglars broke into our home and stole, among other things, our personal computer. This meant the loss of obvious financial information (I have already taken many steps to protect our identities and our financial accounts), but more importantly, thousands of photos and lots of music.

Fortunately, the thieves left the external hard drive to which I had backed up the contents of the pc (using the Windows 7 back-up utility).

While the return of my original PC is very unlikely, I still have the external hard drive. Provided the external hard drive still works, when my new pc arrives, is it possible to access the documents and media files from the back up? How do I extract them from the external hard drive to their proper locations?

When I looked at the contents of the external drive when connected to the original machine, it looked nothing like the file structure of my PC. Since the robbery, I have not connected the drive to another PC.

The missing and replacement system will both be Windows 7. The external hard drive is Seagate Go Flex Desk 1 TB external drive.

posted by Verdant to computers & internet (2 answers total)

You'll need to restore the backup using the same utility that created it.
posted by ook at 6:23 AM on September 1, 2011

yup, especially look at section stating:
To restore a backup made on another computer

You can restore files from a backup that was created on another computer running Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Open Backup and Restore by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking Backup and Restore.

Click Select another backup to restore files from, and then follow the steps in the wizard. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
posted by fozzie33 at 6:56 AM on September 1, 2011