More on system restore failure

[Guest]

System Restore will not work on my system in “normal modeâ€. I’m running
Windows XP SP2 with all updates as of 5/12/2007 on an ASUS M6Ne notebook
computer. What I mean by “will not work†is that I don’t get any error
messages or any indication that anything is wrong until the final step in the
restore process, where I get the System Restore message screen saying:


System Restore

X Restoration Incomplete

Your computer cannot be restored to:

restore point details

No changes have been made to your computer.

To choose another restore point, restart System Restore.


According to the documentation that I’ve seen (Microsoft Knowledge Base,
Microsoft TechNet, Bert Kinney’s System Restore web site), an account that
has “administrative rights†is needed to run system restore in normal mode.
I’m logged in under the user account Mike, which, according to “contol.exe
userpasswords2â€, belongs to the “Administrators†group. Also, the Control
Panel applet User Accounts shows the account as “Computer administrator,
Password protectedâ€. I’ve checked the Event Log under both Application and
System and have never seen any indication of a problem at the time the
restore was attempted. I’ve tried several procedures outlined in this forum
to correct the problem – allow the user account to run system restore in
normal mode – all to no avail. What I’ve tried:

1. Disable/Enable system restore from My Computer/Properties/System Restore
to clear out all old system restore points and create a new restore point
(Will Denny, 8/27/2005).

2. Reinstalling System Restore (using sr.inf) from my Windows XP SP2 disc
(Bert Kinney, 8/28/2005).

3. Disabling system restore on my external disk (I think Bert Kinney’s web
site).

4. Disabling ZoneAlarm Pro (see http://bertk.mvps.org/html/srfail.html . I’m
running ZoneAlarm Pro 7.0.337.000, but I tried disabling it anyhow. In fact,
I shut down all tasks that normally run in the background (for example,
programs shown in the systray notification area).

5. Gaining access to System Volume Information folder (using CACLS; see
Microsoft KB309531). I did this to be sure that all the restore points were
deleted when I disabled system restore. All restore points were gone.

The only procedure that worked, that is, allowed me to complete a system
restore, was the following:

6. Running system restore in “Safe Mode†(Bert Kinney 12/27/2006). I didn’t
have to use the Administrator account in safe mode. As explained above, I
have a user account named Mike on my system and I don’t have password login
enabled, so when I started in safe mode, I got to the Mike account.

After investigating further I found that Microsoft’s article KB306084 (last
review May 7, 2007) is a bit misleading because it says “Log on to Windows as
Administratorâ€, but the Administrator account isn’t available in “normal
mode†startup on Windows XP if you have created other user accounts. When I
enable logging on using user names and passwords, the Administrator account
is not available. In the Control Panel applet User Accounts, if I uncheck
“Use the Welcome screen†and then click “startâ€, “Log Off†and “Log Offâ€,
I’ll get to the “Log On to Windows†screen where you can enter a user name
and password. The default user name is “Mikeâ€. When I change the user name
to Administrator and provide the correct password, I get the message “Unable
to log you on because of an account restriction.â€

Anyhow, the bottom line is that the only way I can get system restore to
work correctly is to run it in safe mode. It’s probable that even then the
account running it needs “administrative rights†although I didn’t try
creating an account with “limited†rights to try to run system restore.

Is there anyone that can explain why system restore doesn’t work as
described in the available documentation?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[Guest]

I'm sorry, but I had several embedded (hypertext) links in my original post,
but they all got lost. I didn't realize that only explicit links were
accepted. If there's a need, I can repost the message with all the links.

Mike

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi,


Are there any Norton applications installed?

"Restoration Incomplete. Your computer cannot be restored . . . "
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/symantecdoc1.html

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

 

[Guest]

Hi Bert,

I'm running Norton 360 v 1.1.0.19 (a relatively new product). However, as
I said in my original post I disabled all auto start programs. However, I
didn't do it as you prescribed since I was unfamiliar with the Norton 360
user interface. I disabled the program using Startup Control Panel, by not
starting (unchecking) the Symantec HKLM\ccApp.exe application. Further, I
disabled all other programs that run at start up time. And retstore still
failed. I'll try it your way and see what happens.

Mike

 

[Guest]

Hi Bert,

Interesting result! I disabled everything I could from the Norton 360 user
interface and I was able to complete a system restore in normal mode. I
guess Norton/Symantec must be doing something in the background that is not
prevented from running even by disabling all the start up stuff. I've
learned something about the start up process.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi Mike,

Norton strikes again!!!

The following page explains exactly what caused System Restore to fail.
"Restoration Incomplete. Your computer cannot be restored . . . "
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/symantecdoc1.html

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

 

[herbzee]

Hi Bert,

Interesting result! I disabled everything I could from the Norton 360 user
interface and I was able to complete a system restore in normal mode. I
guess Norton/Symantec must be doing something in the background that is not
prevented from running even by disabling all the start up stuff. I've
learned something about the start up process.

Thanks,

Mike

I did all of the above too, NG, had to resort to Safe Mode to get a
Restore. Using Norton AV Full Version 10.0.0.359. Don't know what else I
can do except Safe Mode.

 

[Bert Kinney]

I did all of the above too, NG, had to resort to Safe Mode to get a
Restore. Using Norton AV Full Version 10.0.0.359. Don't know what else I
can do except Safe Mode.

Replace NAV. It's about the worst AV software on the market. There are some
alternatives on the following page.

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


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