System Restore failures

[Guest]

Several months ago, restoring from a previously created restore point started
failing. It seems to create restore points successfully but when I try to
restore a previous restore point, I get the message "unable to restore this
restore point; try another one." It is unable to restore any restsore point
that I select.

Does anyone know how I can get the restore function working?

 

[Malke]

Several months ago, restoring from a previously created restore point
started failing. It seems to create restore points successfully but
when I try to restore a previous restore point, I get the message
"unable to restore this restore point; try another one." It is unable
to restore any restsore point that I select.

Does anyone know how I can get the restore function working?

System Restore can be very useful, but when it gets tangled up the only
thing to really do is disable it to clear out all the old Restore
Points and then enable it again.

Malke

 

[Guest]

Thank you very much, Malke. Please explain what you mean by "disable". Is it
one of the following? All of the following? Something else?

- Stop it in Administrative Tools - Services
- Uncheck it is msconfig - services (prevent it from
starting)
- Turn it off in System Properties

Which one causes the old restore points to be cleared out?

Marty Sachs

 

[Malke]

Thank you very much, Malke. Please explain what you mean by "disable".
Is it
one of the following? All of the following? Something else?

- Stop it in Administrative Tools - Services
- Uncheck it is msconfig - services (prevent it from
starting)
- Turn it off in System Properties

Which one causes the old restore points to be cleared out?

From the System applet in Control Panel, click on the System Restore
tab. Check the box that says "Disable System Restore". I believe you
don't need to reboot in XP to clear out the restore points, but it
couldn't hurt. Then to enable it, just go back to the same place and
take the check mark out of the box.

Malke

 

[Alex Nichol]

Thank you very much, Malke. Please explain what you mean by "disable". Is it
one of the following? All of the following? Something else?

- Stop it in Administrative Tools - Services
- Uncheck it is msconfig - services (prevent it from
starting)
- Turn it off in System Properties

Turn it off in System Properties. OK Out. Then I would look in the
System Volume Information folder and delete everything in it - you will
need to have Folder Options - View set to show Hidden files, and *not*
Hide Protected mode ones, and on an NTFS drive will need to 'Take
Ownership' too. Once done, start it up again, and I would while there,
take Settings on each drive and review the space allowed.. The 12%
allowed by default is too much for its own good on a modern large drive;
I would keep it under 1000 MB

 

[Guest]

Thank you again Malke. You are very helpful. On my machine, it says "turn
off system restore". I assume it's the same thing.

 

[Malke]

Thank you again Malke. You are very helpful. On my machine, it says
"turn
off system restore". I assume it's the same thing.

Yep.

Malke

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Alex and everyone else. I was able to turn off System Restore,
shutdown and restart, verify that the restore points were gone, turn it back
on. It automatically created the first restore point. I then shutdown and
restarted, and successfully restored the new restore point.

A couple of questions and comments:
- I didn't understand this: "on an NTFS drive will need to 'Take Ownership'
too." It didn't seem to matter, and I was working in Administrator in any
case, but what is it?
- I was unable to clear out the System Volume Information folder because
several items were in use (probably because the folder was open). Again, it
didn't seem to matter but how would I clear it out? Would I have to use DOS?

 

[Alex Nichol]

A couple of questions and comments:
- I didn't understand this: "on an NTFS drive will need to 'Take Ownership'
too." It didn't seem to matter, and I was working in Administrator in any
case, but what is it?

That's all right then. But in some cases using NTFS (and probably
related to simple file sharing) even an Admin account may not be able to
even look in the folder until this has been done

- I was unable to clear out the System Volume Information folder because
several items were in use (probably because the folder was open). Again, it
didn't seem to matter but how would I clear it out? Would I have to use DOS?

Provided you had disabled SR *and* rebooted there ought to be nothing in
there that you cannot delete

 

[Guest]

Hey Martin,
Hope you are still problem free but monitoring this thread. I am curious if
the fix you got re: disabling SR, rebooting and then enabling SR is still
working?

I am confused! My problem same as yours. So, within Sytem Restore, I
select 'create a new restore point", reboot and it appears that a new point
is created. However when I go back a couple of days later and try and
restore to that newly created point the system tells me it is "unable to
restore to" that point. My question is....is the process you did by turning
off SR, etc different from what I have been doing? and, if so, does ythe
process you followed somehow get rid of any corrupt SR files I might have???

thanks to you and anyone else who might be helping here!

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Jim,

That is a very old thread that you have tagged into. The difference here is
that you need to disable System Restore and wipe the associated index of
restore points. This is done by either clearing the contents of or deleting
the System Volume Information folder on each monitored drive. This can only
be done while System Restore is disabled. Simply creating a new restore
point will not resolve the issue of a corrupt index.

These are the steps I usually recommend you take: Start/run services.msc,
locate the System Restore service and doubleclick it. Click the stop button,
then set the startup type dropdown to disabled. Click apply/ok, then reboot.

Then, check the "System Volume Information folder" on each drive (you may
need to set folder options/view tab to see hidden and system folders for
this) and delete any contents. Reverse the steps to restart this service.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Guest]

THANKS Rick! Problem solved.

Hi Jim,

That is a very old thread that you have tagged into. The difference here is
that you need to disable System Restore and wipe the associated index of
restore points. This is done by either clearing the contents of or deleting
the System Volume Information folder on each monitored drive. This can only
be done while System Restore is disabled. Simply creating a new restore
point will not resolve the issue of a corrupt index.

These are the steps I usually recommend you take: Start/run services.msc,
locate the System Restore service and doubleclick it. Click the stop button,
then set the startup type dropdown to disabled. Click apply/ok, then reboot.

Then, check the "System Volume Information folder" on each drive (you may
need to set folder options/view tab to see hidden and system folders for
this) and delete any contents. Reverse the steps to restart this service.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Guest]

Hey Jim,

I haven't been watching this thread for quite a while. I just noticed that
it's still here with some new posts.

The answer to your question is that after system restore worked when I
tested it,
every time afterwards when I needed to do a restore, the restore failed. I
have more or less given up on system restore though I see a couple of things
in the later posts that I will try when I have some time.