System Restore causes loss of data files.

[Guest]

Hi,

In order to repair a background color problem of the desktop shortcut icons,
which I ran into today, I performed a System Restore based on a restore point
of yesterday (16May). The System Restore solved the problem of the desktop
icons' color, but at the expense of loss of data files on the D partition.
The lost data files where probably added to the D partition after the last
system restore point was made on 16 May.

Anyhow, is that a normal thing that data files get lost after System
Restore??? It looks like an enormous bug.

please reply,
thanks

 

[Gordon]

Hi,

In order to repair a background color problem of the desktop shortcut
icons,
which I ran into today, I performed a System Restore based on a restore
point
of yesterday (16May). The System Restore solved the problem of the
desktop
icons' color, but at the expense of loss of data files on the D partition.
The lost data files where probably added to the D partition after the
last
system restore point was made on 16 May.

Anyhow, is that a normal thing that data files get lost after System
Restore??? It looks like an enormous bug.

please reply,
thanks

System restore does not monitor data files - are you SURE that the files
have actually disappeared and are not just hidden?

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

In order to repair a background color problem of the desktop shortcut
icons, which I ran into today, I performed a System Restore based on a
restore point of yesterday (16May). The System Restore solved the
problem of the desktop icons' color, but at the expense of loss of
data files on the D partition. The lost data files where probably
added to the D partition after the last system restore point was made
on 16 May.

Start the System Restore tool and undo that system restore.

Anyhow, is that a normal thing that data files get lost after System
Restore?

This may or may not happen. That's why you should monitor the system
partition only.

 

[Guest]

Hi,

I did an undo of the system restore and the files came back on the D
partition. However, I went back to the 16 May restore point because of the
desktop icon problem. Hence, some of the files (only those put on the D part
after 16 May, which are only a few files) are missing.

I did not know that System Restore could be so dangerous and that only the C
partition is to monitored. WinXP does not warn for those kind a problems if
you monitor also other drives than the C partition. I looked it up in
HelpAndSupportCenter -> PickATask -> Undo changes to your computer with
System Restore but there was no info about data files being lost if you
monitors other partitions than the C partition

Anyhow System Restore is about the system and not about user's data files,
so any System Restore should NOT remove data files. This problem is to be
considered as a very serious bug in WinXP.
Those kind a problems belong to an era of the mid 1990s were catalog tree's
needed to be fixed from time to time. I am bit surprised that a system (anno
2007) still suffers from problems that should have been solved 10 years ago.

QUESTIONS:
1) Can I undo System Restore ONLY for the D partition (and not for the C
partition)?
2) Can set the System Restore so that it creates a system restore point at
particular times of the day, or when closing the computer??

thanks

 

[HEMI-Powered]

Today, =?Utf-8?B?am9oYW4=?= made these interesting comments ...

Hi,

In order to repair a background color problem of the desktop
shortcut icons, which I ran into today, I performed a System
Restore based on a restore point of yesterday (16May). The
System Restore solved the problem of the desktop icons' color,
but at the expense of loss of data files on the D partition.
The lost data files where probably added to the D partition
after the last system restore point was made on 16 May.

Anyhow, is that a normal thing that data files get lost after
System Restore??? It looks like an enormous bug.

I can't answer your question as I just don't know. I assume you
hadd RP monitoring your extended partition so it restored that to
yesterday along with your primary partition. I would comment
thusly, though: before doing ANYTHING dangerous on your PC,
including updating software, installing/uninstalling software, or
restoring to a previous date that you make damn well sure that
ALL of YOUR data is fully backed up to someplace safe, e.g.,
optical or external HD. The technical veracity of Windows is
often called into question with bug fixes causing side-effect
bugs, security patches opening up new ones, etc.

Some call me excessively cautious to the point of paranoia, and
they may well be right. But, I maintain an external HD for day-
to-day backups of my own data and periodic backups of key windows
information, e.g., Outlook Express E-mail folders, Internet
Explorer favorites and cookies, and the entire gamut of cosmetic
system settings using the Files and Setting Wizard. Then, every
4-6 weeks, I fully scan my system for malware - no sense backing
up an infected or corrupt system - create an Acronis True Image
9.0 image of C:\ and copy ALL of the data I created or Windows
created or my apps created that would disadvantage me to a 2nd
external and run a grandfather scheme with another external
stored off-site at my bank's safety deposit box.

There doesn't seem to me to be a substitute for a well-defined,
rigorous back-up scheme to protect me from the foibles of my
software and hardware, or even the electrical power which is
always doing very short duration black-outs and brown-outs. I
protect myself for these with an APC UPS box.

Hope you get yourself back and I wish you luck in establishing a
backup regiment that suits your particular needs.

 

[HEMI-Powered]

Today, Detlev Dreyer made these interesting comments ...

Start the System Restore tool and undo that system restore.


This may or may not happen. That's why you should monitor the
system partition only.

Per your last, I fully agree, but if you don't turn it off,
Windows will automagically set-up monitoring of any other devices
it can see including extended partitions or partition(s) on
external HDs. In my case, I have 2 extended partitions on my
internal and 2 on my external. Besides wasting space on those
drives, I don't want a sysstem restore accidently wiping out
files that had nothing at all to do with why I did the restore in
the first place.

I don't honestly understand all the nuances of System Restore,
but at first glance, it seems to me that it will restore ALL
monitored partitions to the date you specify, and quite possibly
un-save data files. I remember a good saying about bugs that goes
like this: if a program does what the programmer intends even if
the user doesn't like it, it is a feature, but if a program
doesn't do what the programmer intends even if the user does like
it, it is a bug. So, maybe what happened to the OP is a
"feature" of SR.

 

[HEMI-Powered]

Today, =?Utf-8?B?am9oYW4=?= made these interesting comments ...

Hi,

I did an undo of the system restore and the files came back on
the D partition. However, I went back to the 16 May restore
point because of the desktop icon problem. Hence, some of the
files (only those put on the D part after 16 May, which are
only a few files) are missing.

Good Grief, Charlie Brown! I'm happy to hear that your D:\ files
came back when you undid the RP, but why didn't you back them up
right away so that when you restored back to May 16 again to fix
your icon problem, you didn't kill them again?

Incidently, it is a VERY good idea to periodically back up the
key system settings using the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard.
It is much less dangerous to "restore" lost or messed up settings
than to roll your entire system back, which might easily undo
some things you'd really like to keep.

I did not know that System Restore could be so dangerous and
that only the C partition is to monitored. WinXP does not
warn for those kind a problems if you monitor also other
drives than the C partition. I looked it up in
HelpAndSupportCenter -> PickATask -> Undo changes to your
computer with System Restore but there was no info about
data files being lost if you monitors other partitions than
the C partition

By default, Windows monitors ALL devices connected to your system
that it can "see" at the maximum 12% of HD space, unless you turn
off partitions you don't want monitored and/or alter the amount
of storage reserved. Personally, I cannot think of a reason why I
would want a RP to do anything at all with my data, and that is
specifically why ALL of the data I possibly can have on extended
partitions is there in the first place - so that it doesn't get
mangled by some disaster involving Windows or an app or some HD
corruption that requires drastic action.

Anyhow System Restore is about the system and not about user's
data files, so any System Restore should NOT remove data
files. This problem is to be considered as a very serious bug
in WinXP. Those kind a problems belong to an era of the mid
1990s were catalog tree's needed to be fixed from time to
time. I am bit surprised that a system (anno 2007) still
suffers from problems that should have been solved 10 years
ago.

You must remember that computers do what you TELL them to do (if
they can), NOT necessarily what you WANT them to do. Apparently,
you told Windows to monitor your D:\ and add it to your RPs and
it did precisely what you told it to do, restore it to yesterday
when these files didn't exist.

One more time: to protect your primary partition, get a good
imaging utility like Acronis True Image. Some like Norton Ghost,
I evaluated that and TI but the people likeing TI outnumber Ghost
10:1. This precaution periodically may save you from having to
entirely rebuild your system in the event of a disaster.

QUESTIONS:
1) Can I undo System Restore ONLY for the D partition (and not
for the C partition)?
2) Can set the System Restore so that it creates a system
restore point at particular times of the day, or when closing
the computer??

I don't know the answer to 1) and I think that Windows does its
System Checkpoints at times when it detects no work being done on
your system, i.e. no extensive writes to your partition(s) being
monitored. Mine vary widely, some in the morning, some afternoon,
some evening, and some in the middle of the night.

To ensure maximum safety, as I indicated to you in a previous
reply, I ALWAYS set my own RP before doing ANY dangerous things
to my system. That certainly includes before I let Windows
install Critical Updates as they sometimes cause severe problems
and restoring may be difficult or impossible. And, if my system
is acting even 1% peculiar, I will manually set a RP in case it
is wounded and about to fail so that I don't have to roll back to
a time before critical data was created.

Again, good luck in getting yourself back to a healthy state and
please strongly consider establishing a periodic backup regimen
that meets your needs and desires for protection. Yes, it takes
some time, and yes it can cost money but you have to ask yourself
would you rather spend some time periodically backing up your
system and its data or spend LOTS of time trying to recreate it -
or lose it forever?

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

QUESTIONS:
1) Can I undo System Restore ONLY for the D partition (and not for the
C partition)?
No.

2) Can set the System Restore so that it creates a system restore
point at particular times of the day, or when closing the computer?

No unless writing a WMI script or creating a SR point manually.

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

Per your last, I fully agree, but if you don't turn it off,
Windows will automagically set-up monitoring of any other devices
it can see including extended partitions or partition(s) on
external HDs. In my case, I have 2 extended partitions on my
internal and 2 on my external. Besides wasting space on those
drives, I don't want a sysstem restore accidently wiping out
files that had nothing at all to do with why I did the restore in
the first place.

"Exclude specific folders from system restore backup"
http://www.tweakxp.com/article37472.aspx

In order to exclude an external hard drive permanently, assign the
value "X:\* /s" (w/o quotes) to the new multi-string value and replace
"X:" with the hard drive letter.

 

[Guest]

Do you have such a script somewhere?

No unless writing a WMI script or creating a SR point manually.

 

[Guest]

Hi to aka Jerry, Detlev Dreyer and Gordon,

The D partition in my case is some sort of backup partition already of
several GByte. So backing up again that D partiction is a bit too much. The
D partition has all user date and backups, installers from CD. The C
partition only has WinXP system and applications. Moreover, I did not expect
any problems with the System Restore (SR). To me it is obvious that SR does
not make user data file disappear. However one turns it, WinXP should warn
for that problem explicitly. Note that I have been doing and undoing SR
several times, have been erasing data files after each time I did and undid
SR, and ... ... all those erased files are all back now after I've undone all
SR, so I am back at 17 May. Result is that I have to trash old files again I
trashed before, but that is ok, better trashing files than recovering them.

To ensure maximum safety, as I indicated to you in a previous
reply, I ALWAYS set my own RP before doing ANY dangerous things
to my system. That certainly includes before I let Windows

Yeah sure, question is: what is dangerous or not. I had a MSword file open,
I click a picture in the MSword file, do a copy, and then past it on the
desktop. The result was a *jpg file (as I expected) and that was not a
dangerous act (I think).

However, a side-effect was that the desktop icons background changed from
transparent to desktop background color (blue). By the time I realised there
was a problem it was too late to take a Restore Point.

Conclusions
The System Restore and Restore Point feature is definitly a dangerous thing,
it should warn that user data files can get un-saved on non-C partitions
(including back-drives).
Furthermore, the SR-RP feature should keep a SEPARATE bookkeeping and
monitoring with its own settings of every partition (whatever the number of
partitions: 2, 3, 4, 10.. ) , so that SR can be done on any specific
partition of choice, instead of on all monitored partitions or none.

I got the SR problem solved and got all my files back.
So thanks for the support.

 

[HEMI-Powered]

Today, Detlev Dreyer made these interesting comments ...

"Exclude specific folders from system restore backup"
http://www.tweakxp.com/article37472.aspx

In order to exclude an external hard drive permanently, assign
the value "X:\* /s" (w/o quotes) to the new multi-string value
and replace "X:" with the hard drive letter.

How on earth wouth the OP, or anybody, possibly know there are a
set of obscure command line switches to control what System Restore
does or does not monitor?

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

Do you have such a script somewhere?

"System Restore Scripting Samples"
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/productdoc/scriptsamples.mspx

"TechNet Script Center Sample Scripts"
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...78-dafb-4e30-b2da-b8814fe2da5a&DisplayLang=en

 

[HEMI-Powered]

Today, =?Utf-8?B?am9oYW4=?= made these interesting comments ...

Hi to aka Jerry, Detlev Dreyer and Gordon,

The D partition in my case is some sort of backup partition
already of several GByte. So backing up again that D
partiction is a bit too much. The D partition has all user
date and backups, installers from CD. The C partition only
has WinXP system and applications. Moreover, I did not expect
any problems with the System Restore (SR). To me it is
obvious that SR does not make user data file disappear.
However one turns it, WinXP should warn for that problem
explicitly. Note that I have been doing and undoing SR
several times, have been erasing data files after each time I
did and undid SR, and ... ... all those erased files are all
back now after I've undone all SR, so I am back at 17 May.
Result is that I have to trash old files again I trashed
before, but that is ok, better trashing files than recovering
them.

Thanks for the clarification, but it doesn't seem to help you
much in this case. Do what you think best, but as to assuming
things about the operation of complex operating system functions,
it is dangerous at best.

Yeah sure, question is: what is dangerous or not. I had a
MSword file open, I click a picture in the MSword file, do a
copy, and then past it on the desktop. The result was a *jpg
file (as I expected) and that was not a dangerous act (I
think).

When I was a cub computer programmer, I asked essentially your
question of one of the more experienced guys. He said "how much
time and effort are you willing to throw away if you make a
mistake or the system hic-cups? backup your data at least that
often". So, if you have to ask what is dangerous or not, perhaps
you might want to peruse some good reference books on Windows,
such as published by Que, and learn about what these things do.
But, in the meantime, assume that ANYTHING that is intended to
significantly alter your system is inherently dangerous to some
degree.

However, a side-effect was that the desktop icons background
changed from transparent to desktop background color (blue).
By the time I realised there was a problem it was too late to
take a Restore Point.

Conclusions
The System Restore and Restore Point feature is definitly a
dangerous thing, it should warn that user data files can get
un-saved on non-C partitions (including back-drives).
Furthermore, the SR-RP feature should keep a SEPARATE
bookkeeping and monitoring with its own settings of every
partition (whatever the number of partitions: 2, 3, 4, 10.. )
, so that SR can be done on any specific partition of choice,
instead of on all monitored partitions or none.

Again, RP were added as a fall-back procedure, NOT as a back-up
protection for users. And, again, not knowing how to use systems
utilities can have dire consequences, some far worse than what
you encountered. The onus is on the user to be aware of these
limitations.

Ever hear the old saw about what happens when you assume things,
i.e., assume that System Restore is "safe"? It goes like this
ass/u/me makes an ass out of u and me.

I got the SR problem solved and got all my files back.
So thanks for the support.

Glad to hear that. Now, did you learn something from the
experience, that is, to get serious about backing up your own
data and learning the obscure nuances of functions you use every
day? Good luck in the future!

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

Detlev knew, and so do thousands of others. More to the point, that's what
these NGs are all about. Teaching users about things they don't already know
about.

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

How on earth wouth the OP, or anybody, possibly know there are a
set of obscure command line switches to control what System Restore
does or does not monitor?

This has nothing to do with "command line switches". In addition, there
is no need for the OP to apply that registry tweak since *you* were
complaining about system restore points on external drives. Apparently,
you're not really interested in a permanent solution of your problem. EOD.

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

Detlev knew, and so do thousands of others.

Hi Gary, I didn't see you at the summit recently. Hope all is well.

 

[Guest]

I think aka Jerry has a point. Off course, the MS people do a great job by
teaching usersabout those things. However, many users simply don't know
about the power under the XP motor hood and so it never comes into their mind
to even think about particular features, like excluding HDs or folder from
System Restore.
I too believe that the user interfaces of winxp are simply not good, it is
not userfriendly enough. To solve my desktop icon problem I had to dig
several levels deep into user interfaces.
It looks like the userfriendlyness of the winxp interfaces dates back to the
late 1990s. I can't get rid of the feeling that the interface planners and
developers were a bit too sloppy during the development of winxp. I assume
vista should be better, but than again, mac os and the linux systems don't
sit on their butt either.
Concluding, aka Jerry has a point.

 

[RedForeman]

Hi,

In order to repair a background color problem of the desktop shortcut icons,
which I ran into today, I performed a System Restore based on a restore point
of yesterday (16May). The System Restore solved the problem of the desktop
icons' color, but at the expense of loss of data files on the D partition.
The lost data files where probably added to the D partition after the last
system restore point was made on 16 May.

Anyhow, is that a normal thing that data files get lost after System
Restore??? It looks like an enormous bug.

please reply,
thanks

it's because system restore is monitoring the other drives.... thru
default measures, it notices the changes and fixes them...

Solution is to turn off monitoring of those and any pure data storage
partitions... Those specific partions/drives should be external and
backed up to other media...

System Restore isn't bugged... it's just more powerful than people
think... and many don't...

RedForeman

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

I was recovering from an serious illness, and while I'm quite a bit better,
there's still a ways to go. Maybe next year? (If I'm invited, of course,
<w>.)