Can't use Windows 10 recovery USB drive

My HP laptop with Windows 10 Home wouldn't boot into windows or repair itself or do a system restore. The only thing it would do is let me create a recovery USB to restore my files, settings, etc. So, I chose that option from the boot menu and it supposedly successfully created this USB recovery flash drive.

I then reinstalled windows from the resintall E: partition on the laptop which worked fine. Now I want to restore my files and settings that I already backed up to the USB flash drive and I don't know how to proceed. Nothing seems to work. I cannot boot from this USB drive, if I try to access it from within my installl of Windows 10 by clicking on the 'Restore' icon on the USB drive, it starts the backup process asking me what I want to backup and tries to use the USB drive which already has the backup for that purpose. If I try to do it by going to Windows settings and then Update & Recovery it also just tries to start a backup and asks me where I want to put it.

How do I get my new install of Windows 10 to recognize and use this existing backup? Failing that, how do I manually access those files which now appear to be a series of 310 swm files inside a FBData folder on the USB drive?

'Restore' icon on the USB drive, it starts the backup process asking me what I want to backup and tries to use the USB drive which already has the backup for that purpose.

Is that some kind of proprietary HP thing used to back up files?

You are probably better using a different 3rd party imaging program - I suggest Aomei Backupper as the simplest to use. Free version is fine for most people.
aomei backupper free
It is very simple and obvious how to use it.

I have made boot media which contains aomei backupper and other useful tools. Extract the 183x64.iso to usb using usb7ice, or rufus, or similar.
183x64.iso

Usb7ice.zip

You will find a couple of programs in the boot media that can open/apply/extract .swm files.

Dism10 ui and dism++ are both on there.

usb7ice and rufus, etc will format the usb stick, so you wil need to extract the 183x64.iso to a different stick - not the same usb stick that has all your backed up .swm files on it.

I figured it out. I needed to run the Restore executable as admin and then the strangely worded navigation menus were asking me where I wanted to backup my files, when what they meant to be asking me was where I wanted to restore them. Once, I chose my C: drive and created a folder (which I called Backup) it started to restore everything on the USB disk to that folder on C:

100% counter intuitive since the program kept asking me where I wanted to create my backup and would fail when I chose the USB drive and only started to *restore* my files once I chose the C drive.

I almost feel like this would have been easier if I had less computer knowledge.

Thanks for the help, all!

That is strange wording.

Speaking of just such confusion, I would strongly urge people NOT to suggest Aomei Backupper (the current version) as an imaging software to use. I used this for one of my laptops and the "restore" process is extremely confusing. It adds unwanted partitions to one's backed up disc and creates havoc when trying to get back to a usable machine. I understand there may be people who understand the faults built into the Aomei program which they seem to acknowledge but won't fix. Macrium Reflect is a much more straight forward program to use, to both back up and to restore which I've used with success.

Just my 2 cents.

I have not had any trouble with it. How can it add "unwanted partitions"?