What do I do with the compressed backup files?

Hey guys, this might seem like an incredibly ignorant question.

I create my computers backup, both the system image, which later I learned, I will not need as much as I thought since I want to do a clean install. And a normal backup, which created over 300 zip files into the backup folders.

The question is.. I ended up with all of these .rars, but I don't know what to do with them once I take them into my new installation, do I just unrar them and let the chain reaction start and will it give me the folders as they are supposed to be? Or do I need to unrar each by each at a time?

Which I hope not..

Thanks for your time.

Brink said:

Hello Erick,

What were you wanting to do with them?

Those RAR files is part of the backup.

Normally, you would use the method in the tutorial below to restore files from your Windows Backup.

Restore Backup User and System Files

If that's not possible, then you could manually extract files using the tutorial below from the location in your screenshot.

Backup - Manually Extract Files from in Vista & Windows 7

If you don't want the backups at all anymore, then you could just delete the computer-name folder

Hope this helps, :)
Shawn

Thanks again brink c: you seem to be my savior when it comes to backup information. It's the first one I do since I'm planning to clean install everything, so I want to do it right.

When I double click on the backup icon, it automatically sends me to the backup folders, that when I click will show me all these .rar files, so there is no option for me that says ''restores files for all users in this computer'' The .rars are compilations of my most important media folders. Downloads,photos,videos,application data,etc..etc..

So I assume I could just extract them all into my clean hard drive as soon as Im done setting up my new windows installation?

Brink said:

That's fine. Are you able to use OPTION TWO to restore files from it instead?

Restore Backup User and System Files

Personally, for just files, I would just do a normal copy and paste into a folder on your backup drive. This way you could just copy them back at anytime, and don't have to worry about them not being seen by the backup program to be restored easily.

Yes, I am able to do option number two without problem.

Some files in the .rar files were throwing me incomplete file specified errors, so I guess I will go with option 2 for the sake of the files