UNABLE TO ACHIEVE MUCH AT ALL WITH ACRONIS TRUE IMAGE

I bought ATI 2014 on the advice of an IT 'expert', and it sounded so simple. Since then, I had irregular calls to recover iTunes, but never quite grasped the process. I then changed laptops and from Win 7 to 8.1, but experiences verious technical problems early on. I was advised to return to 'factory settings' after making a 'full backup', which I did using ATI 2014. Sitting with a new laptop, OS Win 8.1, I was then prompted to upgrade to ATI 2015, which I did. At that point, I attempted to recover my backup. I firstly attempted to recover my most recent backup, then any made with Win 8.1, but finally any made by Acronis! All failed. I then sent Harry all necessary screen shots and data files for analysis, although he just referred me to an article.

Several hours later, I'm sitting at my PC having been unable to recover anything (each time I attempt, I'm prompted to ignore, retry or cancel on what appears to be every file), I'm still being prompted to install a 'new version of True Image 2015', despite having already done so multiple times, and now have an external hard drive almost full of seemingly corrupt backups.

In short, I'm completely disillusioned with the product, which has been anything but 'simple' for me. I'm not an IT wizard, but I do expect things to work that I've paid for in good faith. Harry holds all my documentation, but I'd warmly welcome professional support.