How to Recover Your Files with NovaBACKUP

You’ve done your due diligence to make sure all of your data is backed up and available for restore. Now you need to know how to restore your data. It’s important for you to understand exactly how to recover files, so when the time comes, you are not scrambling to figure out how...especially if time is of the essence and there is a dire need for you to recover a file NOW.

This is a step-by-step guide on how to recover your files that you have backed up with NovaBACKUP software. There are a couple of options for recovery. This post will explore how to restore files based on a point of time you would like to restore from, and alternatively by device.
 

How to Recover Files Based on Time

One of the easiest ways to restore files is by using the NovaBACKUP TimeSlider, which gives you the ability to recover a single file or set of files, regardless of when or where the files were backed up. The file tree shown in the TimeSlider restore view will allow you to see all backups that NovaBACKUP is aware of regardless of whether those backups were done locally or online (through one of our online storage partners). From within this tree view, you can also right-click on a file to display the version information about this file. It will tell you which devices have a version of this particular file, the size of the file, along with the date and time that file was backed up. This essentially gives you a version history of backups for this specific file, so you can choose which version or versions to restore.

Launch NovaBACKUP, click on the Express Wizard, and then follow these steps to recover data from a previous backup.

Step 1 – Select Restore

From the Express Wizard click restore. You can also click on the restore tab from the application home screen if you don't want to use the wizard.

Step 2 - Select Files to Restore

This is the Time-Slider view, which will allow you to go back to the earliest backup of data, or to use the latest backup of data to restore from. Files available for restoration during that time frame will show up in the file tree window.

How to Recover Files Based on Device

Step 3 - Switch to Device Mode

To recover files from a specific device, click on the link "To Device Mode." You can use this view to restore files from a specific backup. Choose the backup by expanding a device in the top window. Files available for backup will show in the file tree window.

Step 4 - Select Your Settings

Once you have selected which files to recover (from either method), you will need to determine the overwrite method and the restore destination. You can choose to overwrite or retain the existing file. You can also restore to the original location or select a new destination to restore the file to.

Step 5 - Start Data Restore

Once you select Start Restore you will be shown the status of the restore as it happens. At any time during the restore, you can pause or resume your data restore.

With NovaBACKUP, you can restore your files in just a few short steps. I would recommend testing your backups from time to time to ensure that you can restore your files and that you are in fact backing up all of the files you want to be able to restore.

If you would like to be able to restore your entire system, including applications and operating systems, you will need to create an image backup. You can learn how to do so by reading our post on How to Create an Image Backup for Disaster Recovery.