System Restore Points

P

Poprivet

Hi all,

If I understand System Restore Points at all, and I probably don't, I was
just wondering why it defaults 12% of the drive for Restore Points whether
it's a System drive or not. I can see it being used of course on the boot
drive, usually C, and another drive IFF you had some system settings being
stored there.
But, with say 5 drives, 3 of them for pure data, what sense does it make
to have Restore Points enabled for those drives? I can't see any point to
it.
Also, the apparent default of 12% of the drive being reserved for Restore
Points seems awfully high to me, even for the C drive, considering the
(relatively) small amount of data stored in them. It's highly unlikely that
I at least would make any use of more than a few past Restore Points, say 5
or 6 at the most. Once in a great while I'll create a Restore Point of my
own, but in general I've never had to use anything but the previous one or
two preceding restore points for any kind of recovery.

So, I guess my questions are, what do you think of:
-- Having Recovery Points turned on for all drives?
-- and the 12% reservation of drive space/drive? I might be able to see it
for the C drive, but no other drives. Tha'sa lotta space!

I'm considering turning them off on all but drives C and D, but before I do
that, I thought I'd see what might be going on that I am not aware of.

TIA,

Pop`
 
M

MAP

Poprivet said:
Hi all,

If I understand System Restore Points at all, and I probably don't, I
was just wondering why it defaults 12% of the drive for Restore
Points whether it's a System drive or not. I can see it being used
of course on the boot drive, usually C, and another drive IFF you had
some system settings being stored there.
But, with say 5 drives, 3 of them for pure data, what sense does
it make to have Restore Points enabled for those drives? I can't see
any point to it.
Also, the apparent default of 12% of the drive being reserved for
Restore Points seems awfully high to me, even for the C drive,
considering the (relatively) small amount of data stored in them.
It's highly unlikely that I at least would make any use of more than
a few past Restore Points, say 5 or 6 at the most. Once in a great
while I'll create a Restore Point of my own, but in general I've
never had to use anything but the previous one or two preceding
restore points for any kind of recovery.

So, I guess my questions are, what do you think of:
-- Having Recovery Points turned on for all drives?
-- and the 12% reservation of drive space/drive? I might be able to
see it for the C drive, but no other drives. Tha'sa lotta space!

I'm considering turning them off on all but drives C and D, but
before I do that, I thought I'd see what might be going on that I am
not aware of.

TIA,

Pop`
Click to expand...

I have shut off system restore on all of my drives except "C" (the operating
system) and on that drive I reduced to to 3%. (note each restore point takes
appox. 200 mbytes to create give or take) so adjust yours to what you think
is best. One more thing the more restore points you have the greater the
chance that one of them will become curupted and each RP depends on the one
before it so if you do ever need to use it it may not work. Smaller is
better IMHO who needs to restore back 2 months ago?
 
U

Unknown

In my humble opinion the more restore points you have, the better your
chances. Example: Suppose something happened three weeks ago and for some
reason it was not detected til now. Each restore point since three weeks ago
will not correct the problem. I.E. You'll have to go back three weeks to
properly correct the problem.
Unless you absolutely need the space, leave it set to 12%.
 
P

Poprivet

MAP said:
I have shut off system restore on all of my drives except "C" (the
operating system) and on that drive I reduced to to 3%. (note each
restore point takes appox. 200 mbytes to create give or take) so
adjust yours to what you think is best. One more thing the more
restore points you have the greater the chance that one of them will
become curupted and each RP depends on the one before it so if you do
ever need to use it it may not work. Smaller is better IMHO who needs
to restore back 2 months ago?
Click to expand...

Agreed; I think I'd settled on 5% for C and 3% for D (I have some system
files on D; the ones you can move, anyway, and My Documents over on E. I
doubt there's anything on D for Restore to fiddle with, but being unsure ...
..
Oh, and no, I'm not squeezing out the last bit & nibble from my drives;
it's rather a matter of logic and understanding.

Thanks for confirming.

Pop`
 
P

Poprivet

Curt said:
Hi Pop,

I can only answer your second question, and the only reason I was
given for the default 12% is that HD's were *quite* a bit smaller
back then when SR was developed. Mine is set at 4% (1300MB).

BTW, MVP Bert Kinney has a whole site devoted to SR--some good
reading:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/description.html
Click to expand...

Hmm, forgot about his writings; thanks for the link.

Regards,

Pop`
 
P

Poprivet

Unknown said:
In my humble opinion the more restore points you have, the better your
chances. Example: Suppose something happened three weeks ago and for
some reason it was not detected til now. Each restore point since
three weeks ago will not correct the problem. I.E. You'll have to go
back three weeks to properly correct the problem.
Unless you absolutely need the space, leave it set to 12%.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree with you in principle; just not for my own use. I run a
system state backup once a week and nightly incrementals for the system
drives though, so other than a very recent glitch, I'd just as soon recover
a known valid System State or even just file/s if I know which ones I need,
from the external drive which holds my images. It's nothing I'd recommend
every one do.

My main quest was in what possible use it could be to be reserving 12% of
the drive space on non-system drives. The apparent, and I think logical,
concensus is that there is no need for Restore Points on non-system drives.
I have to wonder why MS would make such a thing the default when there is no
point in it on non-system drives; especailly 12%; that's not insignificant.

Regards,

Pop`
 
U

Unknown

OK I guess I will have to admit ignorance. I have two drives, the system and
an external backup. The backup has no space reserved for restore points. How
is space for restore points set for drives other than the system drive? What
operating system do you use? How would restore points on non-system drives
be used?
 
P

Poprivet

Unknown said:
OK I guess I will have to admit ignorance. I have two drives, the
system and an external backup. The backup has no space reserved for
restore points.
Click to expand...

It shouldn't, actually.

How is space for restore points set for drives other
than the system drive? What operating system do you use? How would
restore points on non-system drives be used?
Click to expand...

They shouldn't be.
Settings: Same place as where you set them for the System Drive. But,
Restore Points for anything but the System Drive are not useful for anything
as you can see if you back up the thread and read more of it. Restore
Points only have relevance on the system drive.

Pop`
 
U

Unknown

I do not have the capability to set restore space on any drive other than my
system drive. That's why I asked what Op sys you're using.
 
P

Poprivet

?? That's a new one on me.

Are we talking about the same "Restore" points?
XP Pro, SP2 & all hotfixes
The ones you get to with
Start;
Programs;
Accessories;
System Tools;
System Restore?
When the System Restore window opens, over toward the lower left is a
link named 'System Restore Settings'. Click that link and you should have a
menu with all the drives listed in it, and showing monitored or not
monitored for each one.
Perhaps you just missed that link?
There may be other ways to access it, I'm not sure; that's the way I do it
though.

Pop`
 
U

Unknown

I'm using XP Home on an IBM computer and the only space setting for system
restore is on the system disc.
 
B

Bert Kinney

Hi,
Hi all,

If I understand System Restore Points at all, and I probably don't, I was
just wondering why it defaults 12% of the drive for Restore Points whether
it's a System drive or not.
Click to expand...

12% was probably a good starting point back in 2002.
I can see it being used of course on the boot
drive, usually C, and another drive IFF you had some system settings being
stored there.
But, with say 5 drives, 3 of them for pure data, what sense does it make
to have Restore Points enabled for those drives? I can't see any point to it.
Click to expand...

I *most* cases there is no need to monitor drives/partition other than the
one Windows is installed on.
Also, the apparent default of 12% of the drive being reserved for Restore
Points seems awfully high to me, even for the C drive, considering the
(relatively) small amount of data stored in them. It's highly unlikely that
I at least would make any use of more than a few past Restore Points, say 5
or 6 at the most. Once in a great while I'll create a Restore Point of my
own, but in general I've never had to use anything but the previous one or
two preceding restore points for any kind of recovery.
Click to expand...

You are on the right track. :) I most cases 12% is way to much,
particularly with todays large drives.

Here are some tips on adjusting disk space usage, and keeping System Restore
healthy:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/healthy.html

Having a one to two weeks of restore point should be enough. For best
results System Restore should be used as soon as possible after a problem is
detected. Going back to far can cause more problem than it corrects.

What should I do before running System Restore?
What should I do after restoring my system to an earlier date?
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/tips.html#BeforeRunningSR
So, I guess my questions are, what do you think of:
-- Having Recovery Points turned on for all drives?
No.

-- and the 12% reservation of drive space/drive? I might be able to see it
for the C drive, but no other drives. Tha'sa lotta space!
Click to expand...

In some cases, way to much space.
I'm considering turning them off on all but drives C and D, but before I do
that, I thought I'd see what might be going on that I am not aware of.
Click to expand...

Good move.
TIA,

Pop`
Click to expand...


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

Bert Kinney

MAP said:
I have shut off system restore on all of my drives except "C" (the operating
system) and on that drive I reduced to to 3%. (note each restore point takes
appox. 200 mbytes to create give or take) so adjust yours to what you think
is best.
Click to expand...

This will vary, depending on the amount of monitored files the get changed
at the time a restore point is created. On my XP system my restore point
averaged 50 to 60 mb's. Installing large application can create much larger
ones.
One more thing the more restore points you have the greater the
chance that one of them will become curupted and each RP depends on the one
before it so if you do ever need to use it it may not work. Smaller is
better IMHO who needs to restore back 2 months ago?
Click to expand...

Two weeks worth of restore point should be plenty.

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

Bert Kinney

Hi,

Restoring back more than a week or so can often cause more problems than it
solves. Any application or update installed, along with registry setting
will be reverted to the time the restore point being used was created.

What happens is System Restore does not completely uninstall applications
when restoring to a point prior to the applications installation. What
happens is, System Restore only removes the monitored files for the
installed applications and the remaining non-monitored files are left
behind. Any registry entries made by the installation of the application
will also be gone. This will cause the application not to function. And in
some cases, cause the uninstall and reinstall process of the partially
removed application to fail. This is why it is recommended to uninstall any
applications installed after the restore point you will be restoring to. If
the uninstall and reinstall fail, try to undo the restore point, uninstall
the application in question, then perform the restore again. The only other
option would be to manually remove (for advanced users) leftover files,
folders, shortcuts, and registry entries.

For best results System Restore should be used as soon as possible after a
problem is detected.

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

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