System Restore points have disappeared

[Galloping Hairpin]

Whilst trying to resolve a problem I performed a System Restore to a point on
1st June. I subsequently chose to undo that restore and now I have no restore
points beyond 1st July.

Is this normal?

Gallopinhairpin

 

[Rey Santos]

System Restore has an automatic restore point space-management feature that
purges the oldest restore points to make room for new ones. System Restore
requires a minimum of 200 MB of free disk space on the system drive at
installation. When the amount of free disk space falls below 50 MB on ANY
monitored drive, System Restore switches to standby mode and stops creating
restore points. All restore points are deleted at that time. System Restore
reactivates and resumes creating restore points as soon as 200 MB of disk
space is free on the system drive.
My system restore is set at 8,512 MB (Max) an I had only one restore point
for the month os June. So, in your case I'd its normal.

 

[Galloping Hairpin]

My system drive currently has 7.19Gb free space. One would have though that
ought to be adequate.

Because of the loss of the restore points it now looks like I will have to
reformat and perform a clean install, with all the side-issues that's likely
to throw up.

In fact at the moment I feel like throwing up!

 

[Gerry]

Galloping Hairpin

Restore points are "stale" by the time they are 14 days old.

Please explain what makes necessary for you to need a restore point so
old. We can then see if there is another way around your problem less
dramatic than doing a clean install.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Gerry]

Rey

My system restore is set at 8,512 MB!!! Why?

Normally 1,000 MB is all that is necessary. Holding restore points
beyond 10 / 14 days is pointless. If you only have one restore for the
month of June I suggest you investigate whether your System Restore is
working as intended.

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/diskspace.html

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/srauto.html

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[M.I.5¾]

Rey

My system restore is set at 8,512 MB!!! Why?

Normally 1,000 MB is all that is necessary. Holding restore points beyond
10 / 14 days is pointless.

Whilst generally true, there can be occassions where you wish you had an
older one. Though usually when I get to that situation, it is sometimes
easier just to restore a backup.

 

[Gerry]

An active user using the computer daily will be more likely to create
more changes to use up the allocated space for restore points more
quickly. If a user does not use the computer on a daily basis then
restore points will not be automatically created on the days when the
computer is not used.You may therefore expect to see older restore
points on such a system.

If a system requires 8 times the typical spacial requirement then the
user needs to look for an explanation. Of course the user might be
trying out beta software and in this situation might need more restore
points than the average user. Otherwise I have recently seen in these
newsgroups a disk space problem created by a Zone Alarm bug.

Where a user has limited free disk space they should know why they are
forgoing free disk space because lack of free space impacts on system
performance. These type of issues need to be addressed.


~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Galloping Hairpin]

The restore point I used was 5 weeks old which doesn't seem to me to be
unreasonable.

Actually none of the replies thus far has answered my original question.
Was it the Undo that used up so much disk space that I lost a months worth
(about 15) restore points?

The problem I have is with Outlook Express and has been aired on other
threads. I have tried a number of suggested fixes but nothing has worked. The
Restore back to 1st June fixed the problem but in the process I lost some
recent changes to my system, including my broadband, so pending a workaround
I decided to perform the Undo, thinking that I'd be able to do another
Restore later. That's when I found that all the Restore points that were
created prior to the Outlook problem had disappeared.

Now it looks like I'm going to have to set aside a day or more to do yet
another new install (this will be the third in as many years) which I am
extremely unhappy about.

I yearn for the relative simplicity of the Mac system where a new OS can be
installed without losing all the applications and applications can be easily
and cleanly removed or updated. I'm seriously considering a return to a Mac
in spite of the price differential.

 

[Gerry]

Using a restore point 5 weeks old means you are potentially undoing many
changes.

I have looked at your airing of your Outlook Express problem. I found
your use of Savefile unhelpful as I was not able to view the image
without registering, which like many, I am unwilling to do. Who changed
or branded your existing version of Outlook Express? I have not
encountered this before. You can get an ISP like AOL who provides a
branded version of Outlook Express but this does change existing
software.You just say no the offer.

Do you have a shortage of free disk space?

I would be interested in seeing a Disk Defragmenter report. Open Disk
Defragmenter and click on Analyse. Select View Report and
click on Save As and Save. Now find VolumeC.txt in your My Documents
Folder and post a copy. Do this before running Disk Defragmenter as it
is more informative. This will help us see how your disk space is being
used.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Galloping Hairpin]

Gerry,

Sorry about Savefile. I don't think my image upload worked for some reason
anyway.

I knew I would be undoing many changes, most notably some new broadband
software from my ISP which, incidentally was the cause of the branding
problem. This branded both Internet Explorer and Outlook Express without ANY
interaction so I didn't get the option of saying no and didn't know about it
until it was too late. That is why I shall be ditching that ISP as soon as
the contract period has expired!

This is the Defrag analysis of my system partition :-
Volume XP System (D
Volume size = 19.53 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 12.45 GB
Free space = 7.08 GB
Percent free space = 36 %

Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 5 %
File fragmentation = 8 %
Free space fragmentation = 2 %

File fragmentation
Total files = 64,961
Average file size = 273 KB
Total fragmented files = 3,169
Total excess fragments = 41,265
Average fragments per file = 1.63

Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 1.50 GB
Total fragments = 1

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 3,938
Fragmented folders = 44
Excess folder fragments = 236

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 84 MB
MFT record count = 69,029
Percent MFT in use = 80 %
Total MFT fragments = 6

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fragments File Size Most fragmented files
116 7 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP393\A0087393.exe
85 13 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP392\A0084710.dll
85 13 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP393\A0089863.dll
61 14 MB \Documents and Settings\MJT\Local
Settings\Application
Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\9rtivace.default\Cache\084FE5D7d01
59 4 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP393\A0090129.DLL
59 10 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP393\A0089864.dll
55 10 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP392\A0084712.dll
55 10 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP393\A0089862.dll
46 4 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP392\A0082522.DLL
43 632 KB \WINDOWS\system32\dllcache
40 4 MB \Program Files\Alwil
Software\Avast4\DATA\log\Setup.log
38 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP393\A0089947.dll
38 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP393\A0089734.dll
36 4 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP393\A0090146.DLL
36 4 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP392\A0082473.DLL
31 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP392\A0087099.CAT
31 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP393\A0087158.CAT
30 4 MB \Documents and Settings\MJT\Application
Data\Mozilla\Profiles\default\dciiwmym.slt\Cache\_CACHE_001_
28 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP393\A0089943.lex
27 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP392\A0087070.mfl
27 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP393\A0087197.mfl
27 3 MB \Program Files\Alwil
Software\Avast4\Setup\setup.log
26 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP392\A0085317.dll
25 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP396\A0091229.RDB
25 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP396\A0091200.RDB
25 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP396\A0091219.RDB
25 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP396\A0091134.RDB
25 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP395\A0091045.RDB
25 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP394\A0091042.RDB
25 2 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{589996D3-44A2-4985-B202-0543BD71C528}\RP396\A0091195.RDB

Regards,
Galloping Hairpin

 

[Gerry]

Well there's nothing obvious there. You have 5 restore points but they
are of modest size. You do need to run Disk Defragmenter.

Why is the drive letter D? What is on C? Is the computer dual booting?

Are there any remaining problems? Why do you think there is a need to
reinstall?


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Bill Sharpe]

The restore point I used was 5 weeks old which doesn't seem to me to be
unreasonable.

Actually none of the replies thus far has answered my original question.
Was it the Undo that used up so much disk space that I lost a months worth
(about 15) restore points?

System Restore tends to have problems as the number of restore points
increases. Personally I have never gone back more than a week to a
restore point.

I cannot answer your question about undo.

 

[Bill in Co.]

That is a distinct possibility, yes.

System Restore tends to have problems as the number of restore points
increases. Personally I have never gone back more than a week to a
restore point.

I cannot answer your question about undo.

 

[Galloping Hairpin]

I have two drives on IDE channel 0. For reasons I don't understand the XP
installer assigned D to the system drive, which is jumpered as master and C
to the other drive jumpered as slave. This doesn't appear to have caused any
problems. I had been experiencing a strange problem with OE whereby the first
attempt to open a file or folder after logging in was taking up to 30 seconds
unless I temporarily disabled one of the Avast anti-virus services but
otherwise OE was working fine until the ISP software branded it. I don't know
how much of the other threads you have read but, briefly, the branding added
a search pane to the bottom of the OE main window. This didn't initially
affect the operation of OE but a few days later this pane suddenly expanded
to fill the window. I can't get rid of it and can no longer see any of the
mail folders or preview panes. Nor can I access them via the menus so that OE
is now totally unusable.

I am not having any other problems with the system (unless you count the
loss of the System Restore points).

As I mentioned I have tried a number of suggested approaches for
re-installing Outlook Express but nothing has worked so it seems the only
recourse is to re-install XP from scratch. I admit that I haven't tried a
repair of XP but to be honest I don't have much confidence that it would be
successful.

 

[Galloping Hairpin]

Well, now that you know what my problem is there has been a deafening silence

 

[Galloping Hairpin]

Well, as Gerry seems to have lost interest in my OE problem I decided to have
another go at it. I first booted up in safe mode then deleted everyting from
the Internet Explorer and Outlook Express folders. I then went into the
registry and set the IsInstalled keys for both of them to 0. Then I ran
Ie6setup.exe. After the installation had completed and the computer restarted
I found I couldn't log in because it complained that msgina.dll was missing.
Since I could no longer log in I booted up from the XP CD and performed a
repair. I then had to sit at the machine for 40 minutes because it prompted
for information (including the product key - why does it need that for a
repair???) at various points during the process. On completion I had a
working system again but - you've guessed it - Outlook Express still had the
same problem!!
I'm at my wits end with this. I feel like heaving the whole thing out the
window. It looks like a reformat and clean install may be the only answer.
The trouble is that reinstalling the ISP broadband software might land me
straight back in the same situation.
I thought Microsoft had been hauled over the coals about the way they
integrated IE and OE into the OS, but the level of integration in XP seems
tighter than with earlier versions. When I tried to delete files from their
folders during a normal login seesion the files magically reappeared after a
few seconds.
I've definitely decided to move away from Microsoft at the earliest
opportunity.

 

[Gerry]

Galloping Hairpin

These are peer to peer newsgroups where all those offering help do so on
a voluntary basis. Like most other "normal" folk, contributors take
holidays from time to time. Given that you have the manners of a wood
lice I see no reason to offer you any further assistance! Please gallop
off to pastures anew.



~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Galloping Hairpin]

With pleasure.