Is it possible to pull a working backup from bad backup DVDs?

Within a couple weeks of getting my laptop (Dell Vostro 3700, intel i5, Win7 Pro 32-bit) I used the Windows backup tool to make a set of restore disks. I have recently learned this may have been a mistake.

Fast forward: a few weeks ago I did a clean install of Win7 from the system disks that came with my computer. It worked ok, but it's missing drivers and programs and such- I've lost multitouch on my trackpad, for instance.

So I decided to restore from my DVDs, and they don't work. Some quick research around this site informs me this is not uncommon, but is there a way to pull the data off them onto, say, an external hard drive, and restore from there? Or restore parts of the data by hand?

Thanks!

Have you gone to the Dell web site, entered your service tag, and attempted to locate and download these missing programs and drivers?

ignatzatsonic said:

Have you gone to the Dell web site, entered your service tag, and attempted to locate and download these missing programs and drivers?

I hadn't before but I have now. No real success.

I should have mentioned before: I've run DriverGenius and gotten most everything working. But Dell didn't have whatever I'm lacking.

It's frustrating, because my backup DVDs have what look like perfectly good backup files on them, the restore utility just doesn't recognize them