by Bill Antonia.
I had a similar issue, eventually managed to use the following solution. Create a file system repository in Moodle and move your files there after they have been uploaded to your server using a method outside of Moodle. The repository directory is in your moodledata directory. Go to the restore menu item as normal but click 'Choose a file...'. Select the file repository you created, choose the file and continue your restore as normal. Regards