Restore everything from a point in time
After a dead disk, a wiped folder or a new PC: bring a whole backup back by restoring a point with nothing ticked.
Sometimes it is not one file. The disk died, Windows was reinstalled, or a folder was wiped. A whole point in time comes back the same way one file does: you leave nothing ticked.
Before you start#
- Room. The Size column on the Restore page shows how much a point restores. The target needs that much free space.
- The password, for an encrypted backup.
- The backup drive or share, connected. On a PC that has never seen these backups, see Restoring backups made on another PC.
Steps#
- Open Restore and click the job under Backups by job.
- Find the point in time you want under Points in time. For an incremental or differential job, the point is the state of your files on that date: the app reads the full backup and every backup after it up to that point.
- Click Browse on it.
- Leave every box unticked. The bar at the bottom reads Everything in this backup.
- Under Restore to, pick where it goes (see the table below).
- Under If a file already exists, keep Replace only if the backup is newer unless you want exactly the backup.
- For an encrypted backup, type the Password.
- Click Start restore.
| Restore to | When to use it |
|---|---|
| Original location | a wiped folder on the same PC: everything goes back where it was |
| Another folder, keeping the tree | a new PC, or when you want to look before you replace anything. Pick a folder with room |
On a fresh disk nothing exists yet, so the rule for existing files makes no difference. Over a folder you still use, Replace only if the backup is newer keeps anything you changed since the backup.
How long it takes#
Mostly the speed of the backup drive, and many small files take longer than a few big ones. Measured: about 105,000 files, 11.6 GB, from a USB hard disk to an internal drive took about 15 minutes. A NAS over Wi-Fi is much slower than one on a cable.
The time left appears once ten seconds and one per cent of the work have passed.
After a new PC#
Restore the small, precious folders first, then the big ones while you set up the rest. Then bring your jobs across so the new PC carries on backing up. Imported encrypted jobs need their password typed again on the Settings step; until then their runs stop with E-ENC-003.
The whole order is in Moving to a new PC.