restore of sql server question

I did a backup of my data base from my office, and copied the backup file (type of this file is called File). I copied this file to my laptop and restored the data base to my laptop. I had an older data base, so was looking for yesterday's data to be restored. but it didn't have my latest updates as of yesterday. the data of the back up was 1/30/04.

what else do I have to do, to assure the backup is done and picks up the data that was in the restored file??

any thoughts

bevI carry my DB back and forth to work quite frequently and I always do a complete Back Up to a new File Name that includes the date. (Example: BU010304) Before I restore it on my local machine, I always drop the old version of the DB.

That works for me, hope this is somehow helpful.