How do I view backed up folders/files?

I'm struggling to prepare my desktop PC for an extensive overhaul. Having put this excercise off for a year, I'm finally taking the plunge and yesterday, I backed up my Windows 10 Pro 32-bit machine (version 1909) to NAS in preparation.

The backups: First, I carried out an image backup of the relevant PC drive then I did a file backup of the users' personal folders/files. I used Macrium Reflect 7 Home Edition (32-bit) for the backups and it appeared to work well, fairly intuitive too - as far as my limited understanding goes.

The NAS is a QNAP. My issue concerns the Macrium 'File and Folder' backup rather than the image backup. The backed up personal folders/files on the NAS has an '.mrbak' extension. I'd really feel a lot happier if I could actually see the names of the folders/files that have backed up but I can't find a way of viewing the backup. When I try to view the backup on the NAS (FileStation) and select to 'Open' the '.mrbak' file, I get a choice of programs and whatever program I select, the backup begins to download (back to my PC, I imagine?) - and, by the look of it, will take an age. Not what I intended.

Question: Firstly, is there a quick and simple way to see and confirm that the File/Folder backup has indeed backed up all intended files/folders. Secondly, when the time comes, how can I retrieve and restore individually backed up folders and files to my PC when I can't see them? Do I have to use Macrium Reflect to restore backed up folders/files or are there alternatives?

Thanks for your consideration. Please reply in laymans terms wherever possible.

You should be able to simply rt-click on a backup file (*.mrbak) and select 'explore':

then select a drive letter, which can then be viewed with explorer. You may note that I have multiple mrbak files, each corresponding to a backup date. Opening the latest file shows all the data backed up to that date (some 4GB), although the file itself is only 2MB - I believe that the 'explore' method must somehow backtrack through the other mrbak files to be able to show items that were last changed (and thus last backed up) some time before. I note that for files which change regularly, only the latest one is shown - to find earlier versions, I have to explore the corrsponding mrbak file. It is a bit mysterious, and one relies on it having done its job[*].

You can restore files using the same rt-click method - I suggest you try that on a significant file and see how it goes.

If you try to 'open' the mrbak file, then obviously (?) the program you should select should be Reflect! In my case it is the default, as one might expect, and double-clicking on one opens the 'explore via drive letter' option. I am sure this is all explained somewhere in the Reflect help files, but I have never bothered to read them - I only ran file-backup for a while to see how it behaved.

hth, Martin (I don't know how to easily confirm that all files have been backed up)
[*] Reflect's imaging and cloning capabilities have been thoroughly tested by many, including myself, and thus I am confident that file backup also works as promised.

You mention 2 processes: "image backup" and "file backup".

"First, I carried out an image backup of the relevant PC drive then I did a file backup of the users' personal folders/files."

I assume both were done with Macrium.

I don't know what partitions were included in the "image backup". You don't state.

If the "image backup" included ALL partitions on the drive in question, then the "file backup" would be redundant and therefore unnecessary. The personal files and folders would be contained in the "image backup" and would be available by a simple double click to mount the image in Windows File Explorer. You could then copy them around via a simple drag and drop.

It's not the most elegant way to back up personal files and folders, but it does work and would be suitable to use on a one-time basis for transferring to a new PC.

I've been using Macrium a long time for system backup. I briefly used its file and folder backup function as well. It's quite clunky precisely because it relies on imaging and does NOT simply make copies of the files and folders in their native format, so I gave up on it.

Thanks for your replies. I've made progress but I'm struggling to get to grips with the way this forum works, specifically how I add quotes from several folk to my reply without removing previous quotes and my own text. This forum doesn't work in the same way other forums I use.

For instance, when I added a quote from a another person's reply, it removed all my previous text, incl quotes, from my reply. Just spent half hour doing that - ah, well. Please bear with me and thanks for your patience. Proper reply on the way...

dogfonos said:

For instance, when I added a quote from a another person's reply, it removed all my previous text, incl quotes, from my reply. Just spent half hour doing that - ah, well.

Just wait until you start adding multiple attachments - I get thrown by that, and they appear in the wrong order. One day I shall investigate properly...