How do I view a backup of an inactive joomla website?

[divineimprint]

A church I am assisting, has asked that I build them a new website based off an inactive Joomla website they had a few years back. It has a ton of information and over 100+ pages that I need to gain access to see! With the Joomla website being inactive, all they can provide is a backup they made before they switched it to a generic WYSIWYG editor.

I've searched these forums and the internet, and cannot figure out how to "activate" that backup offline to where I can retrieve the information from that website. Can anyone please help me?! PLEASE!!! I'm at your mercy HELP! THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!!!!

[Per Yngve Berg]

How was the backup done? Which backup extensions was used to do the backup?
Is it a single file or several?

If it's an Akeeba Backup, there will be a .jpa file.
Use kickstart to restore the site.

[divineimprint]

The client finally uploaded their old website's backup files to my drive. It looks like it was Akeeba Backup that was used. There are three .jpa files total. Is there a particular order that I need to use when opening the three.jpa files?

Does Akeeba Backup provide a way for me to see the website offline, without loading it to a web server?

If it does... which version of Akeeba Backup do I use? I noticed some versions state they are not made for Joomla or Joomla extension backups, but there aren't any that state otherwise.

Thank you for all of your assistance! Your knowledge is supremely useful and I am so very grateful!! This part of Joomla and Akeeba I am not familiar with at all... I'm becoming familiar with it now though!!!! Thanks to you

[Potus001]

The files should be named similar to site-sitename-20140616-190604.jpa
i.e. SITE-sitename-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.JPA

Each one would be a complete backup of the site, so you would only need to use the latest backup.

As these are old files, they may differ.

[dpacadmin]

The backup file can be in multiple parts depending on server setup or site size, I think there should be part# in the file name if it is a multi part file set.

You can use Akeeba's Kickstart file to clone the site on another server using the backup file(s), local or Hosted.
https://www.akeebabackup.com/documentat ... start.html

[divineimprint]

How do I view the website offline... just on my computer? I don't have hosting to unload it on. Does that make sense? I'm lost when it comes to this point.

[Per Yngve Berg]

Install XAMPP, WAMP, MAMP or LAMP on your computer. Joomla needs a wdb server to operate.

[divineimprint]

Thank you!!! All of the information you all provided me is helping immensely! I have downloaded Akeeba's Kickstart. Now I need to go find and install XAMPP, WAMP, MAMP or LAMP on my computer. THANKS!!!!

[dpacadmin]

Instructions for Xampp;
http://docs.joomla.org/Configuring_a_XA ... evelopment

[divineimprint]

THANKS!!!!!