How to restore original file names of my backup files

Downloaded WD SmartWare hoping it would help me “restore” my backup files to another external drive so I can see my original file names. When WD or SeaGate backed up files, they put them in tons of different folders named Backup Set X - Backup Set 2000+.
They’re useless to me, as I can’t tell what’s in them unless I open them one by one. that would take months probably. none of my original file names are showing. we’re talking probably close to 30000 photos, tons of music, and tons of documents.

Has anyone “restored” backups so the file compression would be removed and the original file names shown?
I’m not looking to reformat my computer or have the old backup files supercede all the new ones, just want to be able to open them easier so i can find old files. i bought a 5T desktop expansion drive just so i could restore my old stuff somewhere without jeopardizing my existing computer’s contents, some of the folders for which likely have the same names as backup files. But I am scared to do this using SmartWare in case i screw it up. was hoping for a restore link so i can restore specific files with huge file names WD renamed them, as well as entire sets of backup files, but can’t figure it out from the SeaGate Dashboard or WD’s SmartWare.

What app/program did you use to make the backup in the first place? That’s what you should use to restore it.

Each different app/program (such as Smartware) will do its backup in a different way, including how/where it stores files, what they are called and whether they are compressed or not. Hence you can’t usually restore a backup made by one app by using another one.

Smartware for example doesn’t compress anything, but merely makes a direct copy (mirror) of it. And the only thing it does to the filename is to add a versioning extension if you have it configured to store multiple versions of the files in question.

these were the contents of my WD My Book. when i ran WD’s backup program it compressed all my files. one folder alone has 2,606 backup file folders of compressed (zip) files. how WD treated backups is extremely frustrating. how do i just restore all the files to another drive so they aren’t compressed?

WD SmartWare can’t do this? WD SmartWare sees my Seagate 5T expansion drive as a possible source of backups, but it doesn’t recognize it as a target drive to which i can save my retrieved files/ It only sees my overly full MyBook as a potential target drive.

Frustrated and wondering how WD’s backup system was so awful that you can do backups but can’t read them later without hundreds of hours of work. there has to be a simple way somehow.

editing because i don’t think the responder understood what i was asking.

You should be able to use WD Backup (not Smartware) to do that, if that’s what you originally used to create them.

https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=12964

thank you. i’ll try that.