Think the intended purpose of automated backup option to save to a directory outside of Moodle was to have some backups in case of some serious issue with Moodle itself (and the file system where the backups are really stored). So now that you are desiring to be able to see those backups stored outside of Moodle, one way to reaquire access is to create a file system repo that is a symlink to that other location.
Example is for Linux:
Let's say that you opted to save to /home/m24backups/ as the alternate directory.
In /moodledata/repository/ create a symlink to that directory:
ln -fs /home/m24backups autobackups [ENTER]
listing repository would show the following:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root apache 16 Mar 4 14:04 autobackups -> /home/m24backups
Listing 'autobackups' will show the files contained in /home/m24backups/
[root@sos repository]# ls autobackups
backup-moodle2-course-1-mdl24-20130130-0728.mbz
backup-moodle2-course-1-mdl24-20130226-1035.mbz
backup-moodle2-course-2-backuptest-20130125-2233.mbz
One should be able to use the 'autobackups' repo in any course desired using a 'file system repo'.
'spirit of sharing', Ken