Restoring your Computer from a Backup in Windows 8 (File History) Introduction 1. The File History tool in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 is used to restore files and folders to your computer from a backup. 2. Restoring your computer from a backup allows you to recover data and files that may have otherwise been lost due to a defective hard drive or other computer issue. 3. This video assumes that you have already created a backup of your files and folders on an external hard drive or USB flash drive. If you have not, please watch the video Backing up Your Computer in Windows 8 (File History) to create a backup. Starting File History 4. To begin, Connect the hard drive or USB flash drive that contains your backed up files to your computer. Close any popup windows that may appear. 5. Next, if you re using Windows 8, right-click the bottom-left corner. If you re using Windows 8.1, right-click the Windows icon in the bottom-left corner. 6. On the menu, click Control Panel. Windows 8 Windows 8.1
7. When the Control Panel appears, make sure you re in one of the icon views and click File History. 8. The File History main screen will appear, showing your backup drive.
Restore All Backed Up Files 9. To begin restoring files, click Restore personal files. 10. The Home File History window will appear. To quickly restore all of the file folders and library folders, click the green button at the bottom. 11. When the Replace or Skip Files window appears, click Replace the files in the destination and all of the backed up files will be restored.
12. Your Users folder will open showing all of the folders that were restored. Restore a Single File 13. If you only want to restore a single file, go back to the main screen for File History and click Restore personal files. 14. Next, double-click the folder containing the file you wish to restore.
15. Click the file to restore, click the green button at the bottom, then click Replace the file in the destination. 16. In this example, since we restored a file from the Documents folder, that folder opened and our file Document 1 was restored.
Other Options When Restoring Files 17. There are a few other options to discuss that you may find useful. 18. First, if you right-click a file, you will see the following options: Preview, which allows you to see what is in the file. Restore, which restores the file to the location it was copied from, and Restore to, which restores the file to a location that you specify. 19. Select a file (or files) to restore. You can select multiple files by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard while clicking each file you would like to select. 20. In this example, we will restore only Document 1
21. Clicking the green button at the bottom is the same as right-clicking a file and selecting Restore. Let s review in more detail the three options that will appear: Replace the files in the destination. This will quickly replace the files on your hard drive with the backed up files on your external hard drive or USB drive. Skip these files basically cancels the operation, although when this is clicked, it oddly appears as though the restore proceeds. Double checking the original files however, confirms that the backed up files do not get restored. Let me decide for each file. If only one file is selected, you will see Compare info for both files instead. Clicking on either of these will show all of the file conflicts and allow you to select the "Files from Documents" which are the backed up files, "Files already in Documents" or both. As noted at the top, if you choose both versions of the file, the backup up file will be restored and have a number added to the file name.
22. Let s click Replace the file in the destination and the Documents folder will now appear, showing our file that was restored.
Using the Preview Feature 23. If you re not sure which backed up file to restore, you can use the preview feature. 24. For example, double-clicking on Document 3 will show the contents of the file. 25. Note that this is backup 7 of 7. As shown here, it says This is the latest backed up copy of Document 3. However, maybe this isn t the one I m looking for.
26. To see earlier backed up copies, click the left-pointing arrow at the bottom. 27. In backup 5 of 7 the contents say This is the latest backup of copy of Document 3. Well, that one is grammatically incorrect so I don t want that one either. 28. Let s try backup 4 of 7. This is the one I want. We can click the green button at the bottom to restore the file.
Keeping an Existing File and the Backed Up Copy 29. We could replace the existing file, but what if I want to keep the existing file AND the backed up file? 30. To do this, click Compare info for both files. 31. Note that you have the option to keep both the original file, by clicking the checkbox next to Files already in Documents and the backed up file by clicking the checkbox next to Files from Documents. You could also select the checkboxes next to the files themselves if you prefer.
32. Click Continue and when the Documents folder opens, you will see that the original Document 3 file has been retained and the backed up copy was restored with the number 2 in parenthesis added to the file name.
33. We can verify this by opening each file to see the contents. Restoring a File to an Alternate Location 34. Let s close all of the windows except the File History window and look at the last tip, which is restoring a file to a different location. 35. Here again is the older version of a file to be restored, but instead of the Documents folder, I want to restore it to the Desktop instead. 36. First, click the up arrow in the top left. 37. Next, right-click the file to be restored and then click Restore to.
38. Choose the Desktop location and then click Select Folder. 39. The Desktop folder will now open, showing the restored file. Also, if we close all of the open windows and view the desktop, we will see the restored file. 40. In this video, we reviewed how to restore files and folders to your computer from a backup created using the File History tool in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.
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