Restoring Windows 10 PC from Seagate External Drive

I just got my laptop back from having the fan replaced and the data has been wiped. I thought this wouldn't be an issue because I'd made a backup using the Seagate dashboard program, but as it turns out, none of my programs will transfer over. I have my JPGs and other images, but all my games and software aren't working. In addition, the Seagate restore menu has an option to restore files to their original locations, but for some reason it's not working for me. I feel like in hindsight, I should have used the Windows 10 image backup (or whatever it's called, I don't recall), but it's too late for that :P Anyway, does anyone have advice on how I can fix it? I think my local computer store can do a data transfer, but I'm wondering if there's another way. Thanks.

That's sad news - I would challenge your repairer why the data was wiped for a simple fan repair since there is no reason for this. Indeed, I would demand compensation since you have a lot of work to recover from this situation (see below)

I found the Dashboard guide here https://www.seagate.com/files/www-co...r-guide-us.pdf

Unfortunately, Dashboard is useless for system recovery since it doesn't backup your OS system files.

You will need to clean install Windows from scratch if you have no other system backup - see Windows 10 - Clean Install. You will then need to reinstall all your programs and restore your user files from Dashboard. Your data may be lost sadly if this doesn't work and you have no other backup.

In future I recommend you use a disk imaging program to backup your OS system files and user data like the excellent program Macrium Reflect Free. Use this to make regular backups to your external drive and preferably a second external drive so you have two backup drives in case one fails. I wouldn't bother with Dashboard since Reflect is far more capable.

Steve C said:

In future I recommend you use a disk imaging program to backup your OS system files and user data like the excellent program Macrium Reflect Free. Use this to make regular backups to your external drive and preferably a second external drive so you have two backup drives in case one fails. I wouldn't bother with Dashboard since Reflect is far more capable.

Great suggestion.
I use Macrium Reflect Free at home and at work.
I have used it several times to restore my pc and laptop using Macrium image backups when my pc and laptop somehow:/// corrupted themselves.

I've been using the system image backup in Windows for a long time without any problems. Although it does not provide the flexibility that Macrium does, I prefer it myself. I take a fresh system image about once a week after running sfc /scannow to ensure there aren't any corruption issues. If you want to retain multiple system images, then you need to rename the current one before initializing the system image process. I keep about three or four copies on a WD external hard drive.