VT,
My simple-minded way of testing a backup is to choose a few files on my hard drive and rename them, with an appropriate suffix. Here's an example for one file:
Rename 'test.doc' to 'test1.doc'.
Use your backup software to recover the backed-up copy of 'test.doc'. As mixture pointed out, you can usually choose the location for the recovered file. In this case, restore to the original location.
Compare the contents of the recovered 'test.doc' with the renamed original 'test1.doc'. You can either do this by opening both files with the appropriate software package or have the computer compare the two files.
In the case of a '.doc' file, Microsoft Word has an option to compare two files and report on any differences. I expect there are free Windows programs available which do file comparisons.