System restore

[Ken]

Hi everyone

I am having trouble restoring my computing.

I have tried to restore to every date this year and all I get is a message saying " cannot restore your computer" Can anyone help please

Thank you

Kden

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

That error message would suggest that one or more of the System Restore
files have become corrupt. You can try turning SR off/on, although you will
lose all existing checkpoints:

Right click on My Computer and select Properties>System Restore. Enable
'Turn off System Restore on all drives' - then reboot your PC. Go back into
SR and disable 'Turn off...' and then reboot again. After the second reboot
you should have one new checkpoint and SR should work properly after that.

--


Will Denny
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups

Hi everyone

I am having trouble restoring my computing.

I have tried to restore to every date this year and all I get is a message
saying " cannot restore your computer" Can anyone help please

Thank you

Kden

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

Hi everyone

I am having trouble restoring my computing.

I have tried to restore to every date this year and all I get is a message saying " cannot restore your computer" Can anyone help please

Thank you

Kden

If your have corrupted files on your computer, then all of your restore points will be useless.
The failure of your restore points indicates that you have serious issues with your current install
of Windows. Better to save critical data and do a format and clean install.

Bobby

 

[Guest]

Yeah,I agree with the others.
The restore points are corrupted.

You have to turn it off and again ON once a month.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Sort of overkill isn't that? Just turning SR on and off should purge the
corrupt restore points and allow SR to be useful again. Unless the whole
system is gone kaput, reformatting is a little drastic. We don't even know
why Ken was trying to use SR in the first place. Knowing why may lead to
other solutions....

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org


Hi everyone

I am having trouble restoring my computing.

I have tried to restore to every date this year and all I get is a message
saying " cannot restore your computer" Can anyone help please

Thank you

Kden

If your have corrupted files on your computer, then all of your restore
points will be useless.
The failure of your restore points indicates that you have serious issues
with your current install
of Windows. Better to save critical data and do a format and clean
install.

Bobby

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Ken

Some reading about System Restore
http://bertk.mvps.org/

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
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suggested solution worked for you.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Malke]

You have to turn it off and again ON once a month.

I'm sorry, but this is not true. One good thing to do to prevent System
Restore corruption is to lower the amount of space reserved for it.
With ever bigger hard drives, the default 12% reserved for SR can be
huge. As the late MVP Alex Nichol once pointed out, SR can get itself
in a twist if too much space is allotted. About 1.5GB is what Alex
suggested for the optimum amount.

Malke

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Malke

1.5gb equals 25% of my windows partition. I have mine limited to 6% or
346 mb. No problems.

--


Regards.

Gerry

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[Malke]

Malke

1.5gb equals 25% of my windows partition. I have mine limited to 6% or
346 mb. No problems.

Obviously I meant for the really big drives, 80GB and up.

Malke

 

[Bert Kinney]

Setting the data store to low could cause a loss of most if not all
restore points when installing or uninstalling large application
packages. The amount will vary depending on the size of the partition.
In general 500mb's should be a good starting point for the low end.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Yeah,I agree with the others.
The restore points are corrupted.

You have to turn it off and again ON once a month.

Not at all true. Although unfortunately it sometimes does get
corrupted, it's nowhere near as often as once a month. For some
people it never gets corrupted.

No schedule of turning it off and on is appropriate, once a month
or any other. Do it if and when you need to.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Malke

Wouldn't a multiplier of a typical restore point size be a more logical
way to decide what allocation to make? Just a thought!

I actually have two hard drives, which are partitioned. One is 20 gb and
the other 40 gb.

--


Regards.

Gerry

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Stourport, Worcs, England
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[Gerry Cornell]

Bert

I hear what you say. So a temporary increase might be advisable.
Actually at the present time I am wondering whether to uninstall Adobe
Reader 6 and install Adobe Reader 7 so your comment could be timely.

BTW losing old restore points is not in my opinion a problem, providing
you have them for the last few days. What is the largest restore point
you have encountered?

--


Regards.

Gerry

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Enquire, plan and execute.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Guest]

I am sorry ,too but you are the wrong guy here...

I DO NOT say that turning off and then off would prevent the SR corruption.
I just say that it is good to turn off and then on the Restore function
because there can be a corrupted one so he'll delete it and then will
automatically has a new one which would probably be not corrupted.

Do you understand ?

And it is good to delete the restore points because users install and then
uninstall new programs which reg keys are saved in the system restore and
would be restored.

Try uninstalling your av,for example, and some days later restore to a state
one or two days after removing the av and you'll see that there are tracks of
existment of that av....

I do hope you understand now.....?!


Panda_man
" Let's beat malware black and blue "
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[Malke]

I am sorry ,too but you are the wrong guy here...

I DO NOT say that turning off and then off would prevent the SR
corruption.
I just say that it is good to turn off and then on the Restore
function because there can be a corrupted one so he'll delete it and
then will
automatically has a new one which would probably be not corrupted.

Do you understand ?

And it is good to delete the restore points because users install and
then uninstall new programs which reg keys are saved in the system
restore and would be restored.

Try uninstalling your av,for example, and some days later restore to a
state one or two days after removing the av and you'll see that there
are tracks of existment of that av....

I do hope you understand now.....?!

Actually, here is the exact quote of what you said:

"You have to turn it off and again ON once a month."

This is not a true statement. End of story. Perhaps you *meant*
something more complex and the language barrier caused a
misunderstanding.

Malke

 

[Gerry Cornell]

You are only intended to use System Restore when all else fails. Granted
some users are always using old restore points but I doubt that that is
the way it is intended that the utility should be used. If they do then
they will gain redundant registry entries to the detriment of their
system performance as you point out.

I believe in regularly using the System Restore option in Disk CleanUp
regularly, which is a safer approach than turning off System Restore.

 

[Bert Kinney]

< Inline >

Bert

I hear what you say. So a temporary increase might be advisable.

Only if you are trying to conserve disk space.

Actually at the present time I am wondering whether to uninstall Adobe
Reader 6 and install Adobe Reader 7 so your comment could be timely.

After finding Foxit Reader, I will never install Adobe Reader again.
Small, Fast, Clean, and FREE PDF Reader for Everyday Use
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

BTW losing old restore points is not in my opinion a problem,
providing you have them for the last few days.

They are if you are in need of one!

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi,

I am sorry ,too but you are the wrong guy here...

I DO NOT say that turning off and then off would prevent the SR
corruption. I just say that it is good to turn off and then on the
Restore function because there can be a corrupted one so he'll delete
it and then will automatically has a new one which would probably
be not corrupted.

I think a better approach would be to test System Restore rather than
deleting all existing restore points by disabling than enabling.

To do so create a new restore point named TEST.
Create a new empty folder on the desktop and name it TEST.
Now restore the system using the TEST restore point previously created.
You should receive a message that the restore was successful, and the
TEST folder should be gone from the desktop.

If the test was successful, that would indecate that all the previous
restore points are good and not corrupt. The reason for this is that all
the restore points previous to the TEST restore point were nessasary to
complete the restore.

Do you understand ?

And it is good to delete the restore points because users install and
then uninstall new programs which reg keys are saved in the system
restore and would be restored.

Yes, but wouldn't you rather have a restore point that has a few extra
reg key, rather than a system that will not boot?

Try uninstalling your av,for example, and some days later restore to
a state one or two days after removing the av and you'll see that
there are tracks of existment of that av....

I think you mean restoring to a day or two before the application was
removed!

 

[Stan Brown]

I think a better approach would be to test System Restore rather than
deleting all existing restore points by disabling than enabling.

To do so create a new restore point named TEST.
Create a new empty folder on the desktop and name it TEST.
Now restore the system using the TEST restore point previously created.
You should receive a message that the restore was successful, and the
TEST folder should be gone from the desktop.

If the test was successful, that would indecate that all the previous
restore points are good and not corrupt. The reason for this is that all
the restore points previous to the TEST restore point were nessasary to
complete the restore.

Bert, thank you for posting this. Up till now I couldn't think of any
way to test my restore points, so I just lived with the issue that my
restore points could be bad and I wouldn't know it till I tried to
use one.

 

[Bert Kinney]

Bert, thank you for posting this. Up till now I couldn't think of any
way to test my restore points, so I just lived with the issue that my
restore points could be bad and I wouldn't know it till I tried to use
one.

You're welcome Stan. You may also find this page of use also.
Keeping System Restore Healthy
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/healthy.html