Loss of System Restore Points using Vista

[eperozzi]

I am using Windows Vista Home Basic operating system on my Toshiba Satellite
A205 laptop computer. The problem I am running into is that most of the
system restore points I or the system creates are gone after a few days
(possibly with a new startup although I am not sure about this) with the
exception of only a day or two of the most recent ones. I have a 120 GB hard
drive with about 50 GB of free space. I am not able and/or have not figured
out how to see how much space the system restore program allots so if someone
knows how to determine this and how to change the amount of space reserved
for the system restore point storage to a larger value this would be
appreciated. My guess is that the program default for the system restore
point storage may be set too low. When I used to have the XP Professional
operating system (with a much smaller hard drive), my restore points would
stick around for 2-3 months. Any thoughts on how to keep these restore
points in Vista?

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi eperozzi,

The default is 15% of the drive space, and you would have either needed to
change it manually or be running low on disk space for this to change.

The command is vssadmin, and to see what is set you need to use the command
prompt (cmd) with elevated privileges. Click start and type CMD, then right
click the menu entry and choose 'run as administrator'. From the prompt, run

vssadmin list shadowstorage

The 'maximum' line should represent the amount of allocated disk space and
at 120GB this should be around 18GB.

vssadmin list shadows

This will list the current points that are stored and available. To adjust
the amount of space allocated, run:

vssadmin resize shadowstorage /?

It will give you the necessary parameters. For example, to increase to 20GB
it'd be:

vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=C: /on=C: /maxsize=20000MB

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Nonny]

I am using Windows Vista Home Basic operating system on my Toshiba Satellite
A205 laptop computer.  The problem I am running into is that most of the
system restore points I or the system creates are gone after a few days
(possibly with a new startup although I am not sure about this) with the
exception of only a day or two of the most recent ones.  

In addition to what Rick Rogers said to do: make SURE you have the box
checked that will let you see all restore points older than 5 days.

 

[Ronc]

In addition to what Rick Rogers said to do: make SURE you have the box
checked that will let you see all restore points older than 5 days.

I have the same problem. I never see the "5 days box". Currently, when I
choose the lower dot to see additional restore points there is only one
listed. I had hoped the ones created during the install of SP1 last weekend
would still be there but they disappeared. I copied this from the help
file:

"Restore points are saved until the hard disk space System Restore reserves
is filled up. As new restore points are created, old ones are deleted. If
you turn off System Protection (the feature that creates restore points) on
a disk, all restore points are deleted from that disk. When you turn System
Protection back on, new restore points are created." and...
"To store restore points, you need at least 300 megabytes (MB) of free space
on each hard disk that has System Protection turned on. System Restore might
use up to 15 percent of the space on each disk. As the amount of space fills
up with restore points, System Restore will delete older restore points to
make room for new ones."

Over half of my drive is free (that's 30 GB free) and System Restore should
be allowed to use 15% of 60 or 9 GB. Even at 1 GB per restore point, I
should be able to choose from 9 restore points but there is only one there
now!

 

[Nonny]

Over half of my drive is free (that's 30 GB free) and System Restore should
be allowed to use 15% of 60 or 9 GB. Even at 1 GB per restore point, I
should be able to choose from 9 restore points but there is only one there
now!

Vista's System Restore saves a TON more info than XP's did. At one
point, I divided the space used by the number of points I had and it
came to close to TWO GIGS per point.

To check the space allowed and the space being actually used:

Open a command prompt and type:

vssadmin list shadowstorage

 

[Nonny]

Vista's System Restore saves a TON more info than XP's did. At one
point, I divided the space used by the number of points I had and it
came to close to TWO GIGS per point.

Right now I have 20gigs reserved and used. 12 Restore points.
1.66666gig per.

 

[Ronc]

Right now I have 20gigs reserved and used. 12 Restore points.
1.66666gig per.

Thanks for the info about vssadmin. I do have 15% (8.4 GB) available, ~4.6
reserved/used but the "vssadmin list shadows" command shows only a single
listing. So that's 4.6 GB per copy. With 8.4 GB as the max, at that rate
there is no room for more than one. I guess the real question is why does
one restore point require 4.6 GB in my case.

Another question: Does shadow copy = restore point?

And why do I have nine "writers"?

What's a writer?

 

[Nonny]

Thanks for the info about vssadmin. I do have 15% (8.4 GB) available, ~4.6
reserved/used but the "vssadmin list shadows" command shows only a single
listing. So that's 4.6 GB per copy. With 8.4 GB as the max, at that rate
there is no room for more than one. I guess the real question is why does
one restore point require 4.6 GB in my case.

Another question: Does shadow copy = restore point?

Dunno. Make another one and see what happens.

And why do I have nine "writers"?
Dunno.

What's a writer?

Dunno