RESTORE POINTS

[Guest]

My restore points were deleted from my system somehow after the system hungup
and had to be re-booted. XP did a scan disk operation that supposedly
corrected some file problem. Anyway, the gist is that my restore points are
gone.

I have a recent backup of my drive and would like to know if there is a way
to copy and paste restore info / logs from the backup onto the running
operating system drive such that my restore points are restored.

A detailed and easily understood explanation would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Rich Barry]

Give Kelly's site a try. http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm
Select R and scroll to System Restore.

 

[Guest]

Hi, Rich,

I see nothing there about restoring points by copying and inserting restore
data from a backup.

Thanks,

gman

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Probably not.since Restore Points can not be saved for use at a later time.
Once they are gone that is it.
No matter, as Windows periodically creates new restore points deleting the
old on a first in first out basis.
Verify there is at least one Restore Point since the computer is working
correctly.
If not, create one.

See this for more about System Restore:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/faqsrwxp.mspx

 

[Guest]

Thanks for reply, but I cannot see why the points cannot be restored from
backup data if I have the exact same data that System Restore would use to
restore the system if that data was present. Something is missing somewhere
in the files that was present before or engaged before the points were
deleted. ALL I NEED TO KNOW IS WHAT AND WHERE ARE CHANGES MADE IN THE
OPERATING SYSTEM THAT WOULD RESULT IN THE DELETION OF RESTORE POINTS. Once I
know where to changes occur, I can put the data back in if it is registry or
file related.

Too, I would like to know where ALL the files and data associated with
System Restore are located on my computer so I can check.

gman

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

System Restore data is at C:\System Volume Information.
I suppose restoring old restore points may be possible but you need to go
deeper into the OS than most anybody here is capable.
You do not have exactly the same data since the OS has changed. Every
operation and boot makes changes.
Hire a software engineer at more $ than I would be willing to pay or
possibly even afford.
It is not just the Restore Points, but the OS has moved on making its own
changes.
The Restore Points depended on the specific OS situation at the time and
since the connection is no longer there, the Restore Points have nothing to
connect.

As I said before, there is no point.
The old Restore Points would be deleted sooner or later in any event,
maximum of 90 days IIRC.

If you want something permanent, you probably want an imaging program.
Imaging such Ghost can be permanent where Restore Points are only temporary
as they are designed.

There are many things that can cause loss of Restore Points.
Excessive hard drive activity is a common one.
Low disk space is another.
Low space allocated by you to System Restore is yet another.
The list goes on.
If you determine exactly what happened to your computer, you will likely
find why your Restore Points vanished.

--
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar
http://www.dts-l.org

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi Gman,

Can I permanently save or backup a restore point for later use?
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/tips.html#SaveRestorePoints

 

[Rock]

My restore points were deleted from my system somehow after the system hungup
and had to be re-booted. XP did a scan disk operation that supposedly
corrected some file problem. Anyway, the gist is that my restore points are
gone.

I have a recent backup of my drive and would like to know if there is a way
to copy and paste restore info / logs from the backup onto the running
operating system drive such that my restore points are restored.

A detailed and easily understood explanation would be appreciated. Thanks.

I know of no way to bring just restore points back from a backup. If
you have a saved image of the system with restore points, such as with
Acronis True Image, Norton Ghost, Powerquest Drive Image, etc. then
restoring the image will bring back everything as it was, but restoring
restore points from a backup while the OS has continued to evolve -
don't see how you can do that or that it would work.

 

[Rock]

My restore points were deleted from my system somehow after the system hungup
and had to be re-booted. XP did a scan disk operation that supposedly
corrected some file problem. Anyway, the gist is that my restore points are
gone.

I have a recent backup of my drive and would like to know if there is a way
to copy and paste restore info / logs from the backup onto the running
operating system drive such that my restore points are restored.

A detailed and easily understood explanation would be appreciated. Thanks.

Besides system restore is only good for the short term - one to two
weeks. Going back more than that, even assuming you don't run into
corruption in one of the restore points preventing the restore from
happening, isn't of much use.

 

[Guest]

Thanks to all for your time and comments. I guess I will just have to
re-install System Restore, unfortunately, as it does not seem to be
functioning properly. I created a new restore point, installed a program and
tried to roll it back, but it failed. So, something is wrong with the
restore system itself, apparently.

 

[Rock]

Thanks to all for your time and comments. I guess I will just have to
re-install System Restore, unfortunately, as it does not seem to be
functioning properly. I created a new restore point, installed a program and
tried to roll it back, but it failed. So, something is wrong with the
restore system itself, apparently.

Here is a good reference on system restore including how to reinstall
it: http://bertk.mvps.org/

 

[Guest]

Well, amazingly, I got the thing working again without having to reinstall.
Restore wouldn't even restore to a newly created restore point beofer I did
the following: I rolled the registry back to an earlier date using a
program I have that backs up registry. Tried a restore operation and it
failed. So, I rolled the registry forward back to where it was before I
rolled it back. Copied and installed in the _restore folder the following
files: _driver.cfg, _filelst.cfg, drivetable.txt, fifo.log. SKDISKID.dat was
already there. Then, I created a restore point, installed a program and did
a restore operation to the new restore point that I created just before
installing the program. As I said, it was successful. So, I tested it again
by creating another restore point, installing a different program and rolling
it back to the new restore point. Worked again!

I would like to know out of curiosity if I could roll it back to a point a
few days ago as they are showing in the calender, but I am not willing to
risk it! LOL Curiosity killed the cat, as they say. All is right with the
world -- I hope!!!

If anyone has any idea what part of what I did caused Restore to function
properly again, please let me know. Maybe it was rolling the registry back
and then forward. Thanks.

Please pass this on to Bert as it seems he specializes in System Restore.

gman

 

[David]

Well, amazingly, I got the thing working again without having to reinstall.
Restore wouldn't even restore to a newly created restore point beofer I did
the following: I rolled the registry back to an earlier date using a
program I have that backs up registry. Tried a restore operation and it
failed. So, I rolled the registry forward back to where it was before I
rolled it back. Copied and installed in the _restore folder the following
files: _driver.cfg, _filelst.cfg, drivetable.txt, fifo.log. SKDISKID.dat was
already there. Then, I created a restore point, installed a program and did
a restore operation to the new restore point that I created just before
installing the program. As I said, it was successful. So, I tested it again
by creating another restore point, installing a different program and rolling
it back to the new restore point. Worked again!

I would like to know out of curiosity if I could roll it back to a point a
few days ago as they are showing in the calender, but I am not willing to
risk it! LOL Curiosity killed the cat, as they say. All is right with the
world -- I hope!!!

If anyone has any idea what part of what I did caused Restore to function
properly again, please let me know. Maybe it was rolling the registry back
and then forward. Thanks.

Please pass this on to Bert as it seems he specializes in System Restore.

gman

I Have done a lot of system restores and system restore type of things.
inside the system volume, you may need to give your self access there
is a folder restore (e.g. C:\System Volume
Information\_restore{745FC625-F1CD-4B8B-A982-9C8B1369EA50}) then the RP
files, RP1 2 3 4 5, and inside those files there are SNAPSHOT folders
which take a snapshot of your registry (thats what a system restore is
a snapshot of your registry at a given time) and if you take the 5
(five) registry keys REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM,secuirty,etc, and rename them
to just SAM SECURITY and place them in the
c:\systemroot\system32\config file that will change your registry back
to a certain time.

if you had backup data of that folder and could find the snapshots you
could then get it back to a certain date.

hope that made a little bit of sense. But i have done this many of
times and it has worked every time.

 

[Guest]

Thank you, David, for the info. I will read through it carefully later to
see if I can fully understand it as it would be helpful in future.

The one thing I would like to know exactly are the names of the five
registry keys you mention. Also, do you mean rename all five 'SAM SECURITY'?
Can you have more than one key with the same exact name? I guess I would
need this spelt out in exact detail as messing this operation up might
prevent the computer from starting at all.

gman

 

[David]

when you go into that folder C:\System Volume
Information\_restore{745FC625-F1CD-4B8B-A982-9C8B1369EA50}\RP1\snapshott
and the files there called _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM you rename them to
SAM...you do that for all five SAM, SECUIRTY, SOFTWARE, SYSTEM, DEFUALT
and then your copy the five files out of C:\WINDOWS\system32\config and
put them into lets say C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\backup and then place
the 5 files you just renamed into C:\WINDOWS\system32\config. if you
have any other questions email me at (e-mail address removed)

 

[Guest]

Hi, David,

Thanks for the additional info. I will look over what you have sent. As I
mentioned, somehow I got Restore working again, so I am okay at present, but
the info you provide may well be helpful in the future as Restore seems to
get easily messed up.

Happy holidays,

Cecil