Help, retrieval

First of all, not a good way to start, but my external drive is the most hated electronic item I own.  I cannot for the life of me figure out how to retrieve a file.  I back up regularly, but it still says next to the items (pictures, movies) April 2014, though at the bottom of the screen it has the current date.  I can’t tell if it is working and I can’t look at any backed up files.  To make it worse, I back up my laptop and desk top, and there is no way if I am on my desktop to find laptop files.

This is useless to me when I only want to know if my pictures are backed up.  HELP.  Sorry for this frustrated post but I really hate this software and product and the fact that I can’t contact any customer service is irritating as there is no incentive for them to improve their software when you have to pay for help.  

  1. How do I know it is working when the dates next to the categories is an old date?

  2. How to retieve a specific folder.

  3. How to retrieve from a different computer backed up on same drive?

Thanks