system restore failure

[Guest]

I used to be able to go back months at a time in system restore but now I can
only go back 5 days. I desperately need to go back to fix my computer. Does
anyone have any ideas?

 

[gratemyl]

Did you clean up your drive recently? (i.e.: free space warning+clean
up)

That would be one possible cause.

Otherwise, locate the "C:\System Restore" folder and look at the number
of sub-folders. Post the data here.

 

[gratemyl]

Sorry for invalid post: the folder name is "C:\System Volume
Information"

 

[Ron Martell]

I used to be able to go back months at a time in system restore but now I can
only go back 5 days. I desperately need to go back to fix my computer. Does
anyone have any ideas?

System Restore should *never* be used to go back more than a few days,
and the best usage for it is to put the system back to something like
"10 minutes ago, just before I did .........".

The availability of system restore points depends on a number of
factors, including:
1. The amount of disk space allocated to system restore.
2. The frequency with which new system restore points are created.
Normally only one automatic restore point is created each day, but
additional ones will be created whenever Windows Updates are
installed, new programs are installed, existing programs are updated
or uninstalled, changes are made to the computer's configuration, etc.
3. The size and the complexity of the individual changes (as per #2).
Installing or uninstalling a major app such as Microsoft Office will
create a much larger restore point than would the creation of a new
desktop shortcut.

What is the nature of the problem you are trying to fix? Why did it
take so long for the problem to become apparent?

In the absence of System Restore it may be necessary to do a Repair
Install of Windows in order to resolve a serious issue.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada

 

[Guest]

ATTN: Ron Martell

I just stumbled on this thread and saw your comments. Maybe you can help me.

I have in the past few days finally 'cleaned up' my system getting rid of
error message problems and snail-like speed. To do so I ran spyware prgrams,
cleaned up the start up file and registry. Everything seems to work very
well and I have done lots of checking before making that comment.

The problemis that System Restore doesn't work. I don't know if I have had
the problem for some time or if it just started while solving the other
recent problems.

I first noticed a problem a few days ago when I attempted to restore back a
month or so. That didn't work so I began trying dates closer and closer to
now. I found previous points that I could restore to and others that I could
not. I continued "playing" with SR and found that some points where a
restore had previously failed now seemed to restore just fine! finally, I
got the system running well and decided to create my own restore point and
satart fresh. I waited a couple of days and tried to restore to that point
with no success. Since then a number of points have been created, the most
recent was yesterday when Spybot created one and another was created when
Microsoft installed recent updates. This morning I tried to restore to those
points and was unable to do so. I get the same message each time...that
sytem restore is unable to restore to the pont which I selected.

I have read the Event Log and see nothing which helps though that seemed
like 'greek' to me. I have enough resources to run SR. On another site I
read a comment where someone had tried a "repair install" of Windows to get
back SR and that hadn't worked.

Can you please help here?

 

[Ron Martell]

ATTN: Ron Martell

I just stumbled on this thread and saw your comments. Maybe you can help me.

I have in the past few days finally 'cleaned up' my system getting rid of
error message problems and snail-like speed. To do so I ran spyware prgrams,
cleaned up the start up file and registry. Everything seems to work very
well and I have done lots of checking before making that comment.

The problemis that System Restore doesn't work. I don't know if I have had
the problem for some time or if it just started while solving the other
recent problems.

I first noticed a problem a few days ago when I attempted to restore back a
month or so. That didn't work so I began trying dates closer and closer to
now. I found previous points that I could restore to and others that I could
not. I continued "playing" with SR and found that some points where a
restore had previously failed now seemed to restore just fine! finally, I
got the system running well and decided to create my own restore point and
satart fresh. I waited a couple of days and tried to restore to that point
with no success. Since then a number of points have been created, the most
recent was yesterday when Spybot created one and another was created when
Microsoft installed recent updates. This morning I tried to restore to those
points and was unable to do so. I get the same message each time...that
sytem restore is unable to restore to the pont which I selected.

I have read the Event Log and see nothing which helps though that seemed
like 'greek' to me. I have enough resources to run SR. On another site I
read a comment where someone had tried a "repair install" of Windows to get
back SR and that hadn't worked.

Can you please help here?

Have you been to MVP Bert Kinney's System Restore pages:
http://bertk.mvps.org/index.html That is the best resource that I
know of regarding System Restore.

I do not know of any way to salvage the existing system restore points
when they stop working. The only procedure that I know of is to:
1. Turn off System Restore
2. Reboot the computer
3. Turn System Restore back on again.

Once you have done this you should test system restore by:

1. Create a new desktop shortcut of any kind.
2. Manually create a new system restore point.
3. Delete the shortcut you created in step 1.
4. Reboot the computer.
5. Run System Restore and choose the restore point you created in step
2.

The deleted shortcut should reappear on your desktop.


I see from your comments that you tried to go back a month or more by
using System Restore. Experience has shown that this is not a good
idea, and it will most often create as many or more problems than it
resolves. System Restore should be used for short term recovery,
such as "Oops. Need to get back to the way it was 10 minutes ago
before I did ....." or at most to set it back to the previous week.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi Jim,

As Ron pointed out, restoring back that far is a bad idea. You could get
some of the removed spyware and virus infections back by restoring to a
point when the system was infected. Once virus/spyware removal is
completed and the system is running normally, all restore points should
be deleted to prevent re-infection.

The reason newly created restore points would not work is that some of
the previous restore points were most likely corrupted by the virus
infection. Newly created restore points require all previous restore
points to complete the restore process.