Retrieving from earlier version

Hi! Firstly, I am an idiot with computers and rely solely on the help of others. My problem may seem silly but I don't know what to do. I had the 2011 version of Acronis which I used to backup to an external hard drive (Iomega). A week ago, my 6 year old laptop died so I bought a new one. Thinking that I could access my back ups with the newest version of Acronis, I downloaded the 2015 version, however, I can't figure out how to access the backup nor does the program seem to realize that there is an Acronis backup on the external hard drive. I have no access to the original laptop (it won't even turn on!) so I need my files and some of my programs from the back up (I, of course, didn't back up the exe files anywhere else other than the Acronis back up). Please help (and use small words)! My 2015 build number in 6525 and the 2011 one in 6942.
Thanks!