Really LONG System Restore Times on Two Computers

[Alan]

Hi all,

I have a question regarding the time for a System Restore on my PC -- a Dell
DM061/Dimension E520 with 2 GB RAM-- and my son's machine -- a Dell XPS 410
also with 2 GB RAM.

My PC has a 250 GB hard drive, while my son's is 325 GB.

I notice that on both machines, which are running XP Home with SP2 and all
updates, System Restore takes what I think is a really long time to
complete. Each take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour to complete.

On my older Dell Dimension 2400, also running XP Home with SP2 and all
updates and which has a 40 GB hard drive, System Restore never has taken
more than 10 minutes and usually less time.

Is the length of time for System Restore related to the size of the Hard
Drive, and is 45 minutes or so an excessive amount of time for SR to
complete?

Thanks.

Alan

 

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?_db_=B4=AF`=B7.._=3E=3C=29=29=29=BA]

likely the 2gig ram
machine has been supe'd
up with lot's of non
microsoft software.

system restore can be
done via safemode as well.

might actually be faster too.

--

<)))º>·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·.. ><)))º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><)))º>

..

 

[JS]

How much free disk space do you have on these PC's?

JS

 

[Alan]

Hi JS,

On the PC that has the 225 GB hard drive, there are 159 GBs free. On the
machine that has the 325 GB drive, there are 251 GBs free.

I didn't mention it earlier, but both systems are using NTFS.

Alan

 

[Bill Sharpe]

Hi JS,

On the PC that has the 225 GB hard drive, there are 159 GBs free. On the
machine that has the 325 GB drive, there are 251 GBs free.

I didn't mention it earlier, but both systems are using NTFS.

Alan

Are your drives partitioned? I have a 250 GB drive with three
partitions. System Restore is set to work only on the main C: drive,
which is 120 GB. It never takes longer than five minutes to do a
restore. Running System Restore on data drives is unnecessary.

Bill

 

[Alan]

Hello Bill,

Both machines have only a C:\ drive. There might be a hidden partition on
both machines that Dell puts in to enable a "factory" restore, but nothing
other than C:\ shows in Windows Explorer.

Alan

 

[JS]

What is the size of a typical Restore Point folder (RPXXX)?

JS

 

[Alan]

I can't get in to see the information, JS.

In Windows Explorer, as soon as I left-click on the System Volume
Information folder on BOTH machines, I receive a message saying: "C:\System
Volume Information is not accessible. Access is denied."

When I right-click and display Properties for the System Volume Information
folder, it shows there are 0 bytes, 0 Files and 0 Folders. Its create date
and time is Tuesday, August 10, 2004, 1:08:16 PM.

When I right-click on the Windows folder and display Properties, it shows a
create date and time of Tuesday, August 10, 2004, 12:52:55 PM.

Alan

 

[JS]

See if this info helps:
http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windows/t-37619-Need-help-accessing-system-volume-information.html

JS

 

[Alan]

Hi JS,

Okay, I found a KB article, # 309531, that explains how I can access the
System Volume Information folder.

Looking on my PC -- the one with the 250 GB hard drive -- the latest Restore
Point made today -- is 1.15 GB uncompressed, and has 530 RDB files, with
each RDB being 2112 KB. A Restore Point made yesterday is 1.41 GB
uncompressed and has 672 RDB files with each RDB being 2108 KB.

Some other random RP dates and statistics:
- RP from 9/26/07 is 99.4 MB uncompressed, and has 20 RDB files with each
RDB being 2024 KB
- RP from 9/16/07 is 132 MB uncompressed, and has 41 RDB files with each
RDB being 1993 KB
- RP from 8/23/07 is 156 MB uncompressed, has 53 RDB files with each RDB
being 1917 KB.

The earliest Restore Point that I have is from 7/26/07. This one is 69.4 MB
uncompressed, and has 11 RDB files with each RDB being 1812 KB.

More information:
- RP on 10/3/07 286 MB (300,489,048 bytes)
- RP on 10/4/07 563 MB (590,877,298 bytes)
- RP on 10/5/07 1.40 GB (1,506,288,752 bytes)

From the System Restore GUI:
- On 10/02/07 between 8:57 PM and 10:12 PM there are 12 Restore Points made
as a result of Software Distribution 3.0 Services (I'm not sure what was
being updated on this date.)
- On 10/03/07 there are three Restore Points made as a result of Java
uninstalls and reinstall of the latest version.

Alan

 

[JS]

Those early restore points look more normal, what been changed recently on
your PC that caused the jump to 1GB or more?

JS

 

[Alan]

I'm copying these from my earlier post:

More information:
- RP on 10/3/07 286 MB (300,489,048 bytes)
- RP on 10/4/07 563 MB (590,877,298 bytes)
- RP on 10/5/07 1.40 GB (1,506,288,752 bytes)

From the System Restore GUI:
- On 10/02/07 between 8:57 PM and 10:12 PM there are 12 Restore Points made
as a result of Software Distribution 3.0 Services (I'm not sure what was
being updated on this date.)
- On 10/03/07 there are three Restore Points made as a result of Java
uninstalls and reinstall of the latest version.

I really have NO idea why there were 12 Restore Points made as a result of
Software Distribution 3.0 Services. And it's possible that the uninstall and
re-install of Java has something to do with it.

But it's also possible that there is no correlation between these events and
the size of the RPs getting so big.

Alan

 

[JS]

Turn of "Automatic Updates" for a while (several Days) and see if the
restore point drop down to normal. I think Microsoft has a habit of
trickling updates over a period of time and this could be the problem.

JS

 

[Alan]

Okay, JS, although I had my A/U set to just notify me about downloads, I
have now turned it off completely.

I'll check the size of the RPs every few days and let you know.

Thanks for taking an interest in this post.

Alan

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi Alan,

Set System Restore to only monitor the drive/partition Windows is installed on.
How to disable a monitored drive:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/drivedisable.html

Set System Restore to use 1 - 2 GB's of disk space to hold restore points.
How to Adjust the amount of disk space System Restore uses to hold restore
points:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/diskspace.html

Then test System Restore.
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/tips.html#3

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org

 

[Alan]

Hello Bert,

I'm not sure if you are seeing the posts between "JS" and me. But in case
you aren't, I'll copy/paste some of the information below.

Do you think there's some sort of correlation between the change in size of
the RPs I've been seeing -- from 286 MB to 1.40 GB in three days -- and
having Automatic Updates turned on, even just for notification?

Alan

Turn of "Automatic Updates" for a while (several Days) and see if the
restore point drop down to normal. I think Microsoft has a habit of
trickling updates over a period of time and this could be the problem.

JS

 

[Bert Kinney]

Yes I saw it. And I do not think Automatic Updates has anything to do with
it. To troubleshoot, please follow my previous instructions.

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org

 

[JS]

Hey give Burt's suggestion a try, if it's works then your problem is solved.

JS

 

[Alan]

Hi Bert and JS,

When I adjusted my SR size to 3 Gig, I ended up with RPs going back only
three days -- including the one that was made on 10/24/07 and was 1.15 GB.

So, I just turned off SR, restarted it, and manually created an RP in
addition to the one that was automatically created.

I then ran SR to go back to one of the two RPs. This time System Restore
took less than 5 minutes (probably only two minutes) to gather the files and
return to the RP.

After I cleaned out all previous RPs, I set the maximum size once again to
its maximum 12 percent of the available HD space.

Since then, there have been 4 RPs made with the following statistics:

- 54.9 MB (34 Files, 3 Folders) October 25, 2007, 8:17:02 PM -- Auto-created

- 61.1 MB (259 Files, 3 Folders) October 25, 2007, 8:18:20 PM -- Manually
created

- 389 MB (218 Files, 3 Folders) on October 25, 2007, 8:23:12 PM -- System
Checkpoint

- 513 MB (259 Files, 3 Folders) Today, October 26, 2007, 1:48:33 AM --
Software Distribution Service 3.0. According to my Windows Defender log,
this is the time that WD ran overnight.

As you can see, the RP size is very quickly increasing in size within 4 RPs
and an elapsed time of 12 hours.

Is this 'normal?'

Alan

 

[JS]

No it does not appear to be normal, when I was (am no longer) using Windows
Defender it did create extra Restore Points but not anywhere near the size
of your RP folders. Have you run any extensive malware/virus checks and if
so using what software tools?

JS