System Restore Not Saving Restore Point

[JamesJ]

Don't know why, but now System Restore allows creation of
a restore point but after rebooting the restore point is gone.
Says that no restore points were created on this system.

Any help will be appreciated,
James

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Try disabling your Antivirus utility before creating the system restore
point, they tend to interfere with it.

Here is a link to helpful resources on System Restore in Windows Vista by
Bert Kinney [MVP]:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/vista.html

 

[JamesJ]

That wasn't it. I've had the same Anti-Virus software for some
time naw and haven't had this probelm.
I have plenty of disk space.

 

[Michael Palumbo]

Don't know why, but now System Restore allows creation of
a restore point but after rebooting the restore point is gone.
Says that no restore points were created on this system.

Any help will be appreciated,
James

Are you using any third party disk tools?

Perfect Disk or Diskeeper?

Any utility that accesses the disk outside of Windows (during boot, for
example) will cause Windows to erase all restore points. This is due to the
fact that the software is modifying the disk outside of Windows "control" so
Windows has no way of tracking the changes, making the restore points
unusable.

Also, if you're dual-booting with XP, when XP is run all restore points for
Vista will be erased as well, for basically the same reason(s).

If neither of these is the case, can you provide more information about the
hardware/software that you are running?

Mic

 

[JamesJ]

Don't believe software is accessing the drive prior to Windows starting.
No dual boot.
Vista reports my disk drive as a standard: ST3160812A ATA - 150gb with 134gb
free.
Anti-Virus software is by PC Tools.
This problem wasn't occurring before but I can't say exactly when it
started 'cause I only manually create restore points when I install new
software.
The first time I noticed this was when I created a restore point before
installing
Live Onecare trial and tryeds to restore the system back. I must say this
problem
could have been there before installing Onecare.

James

 

[Michael Palumbo]

Don't believe software is accessing the drive prior to Windows starting.
No dual boot.
Vista reports my disk drive as a standard: ST3160812A ATA - 150gb with
134gb free.
Anti-Virus software is by PC Tools.
This problem wasn't occurring before but I can't say exactly when it
started 'cause I only manually create restore points when I install new
software.
The first time I noticed this was when I created a restore point before
installing
Live Onecare trial and tryeds to restore the system back. I must say this
problem
could have been there before installing Onecare.

James

Were you running PC Tools and Onecare together?

You can't run two antivirus programs at the same time . . .

Does PC Tools scan the boot sectors during boot? If it does, and writes to
the disk (even just a log) before Vista is doing the disk chores this could
be the problem.

I'm assuming the restore point is still available BEFORE a reboot, after its
creation, correct?

If this is indeed the case, this tells me that SOMETHING must be writing to
the disk, or making some change to the disk, that Windows sees as an
"untrackable" change casing it to remove the restore points.

I found this out by accident. I was using Perfect Disk and when I ran a
boot-time defrag noticed all my restore points were gone. After a little
Googling I found all this out about how Vista handles restore points.

Again, any little change done before Windows is handling all disk operations
will remove all restore points, that's where I'd start my search in your
position.

Mic

 

[Miroslav Pragl]

You can't run two antivirus programs at the same time . . .

Not in general. If these antimalware programs are vista compatible and
security center aware they shouldn't interfere.

anyway it's really the best practice to switch off all programs that could
potentially make problems

MP

 

[Michael Palumbo]

Not in general. If these antimalware programs are vista compatible and
security center aware they shouldn't interfere.

anyway it's really the best practice to switch off all programs that could
potentially make problems

MP

I was referring specifically to antivirus programs. You can't run two
resident antivirus programs at the same time. They will "bump heads" and
cause problems like inexplicable crashes, system slowdowns and sometimes
file corruption.

Onecare, among its other functions is primarily antivirus, and the OP
stated, "Anti-Virus software is by PC Tools." If both are running, problems
could ensue.

Anti-Spy/Ad-ware programs, on the other hand, are usually manually launched,
not resident, and it's best practice to use more than one.

Mic

 

[JamesJ]

I see no settings in the PC Tools software that indicates it is scanning the
boot sector.
When I installed Onecare it disabled PCTools software for me.

I did have trial Perfect Disk but uninstalled it when this problem arose but
the problem
persisted after the uninstall.

 

[AlexB]

I think a restore point is created automatically when you downloaded
something and installed.

If you installed five packages today, there will be five restore points. If
you want to restore the system to the second one all subsequent will be
gone. I am not quite sure, but it seems the point you are restoring to will
also be gone but the folders will remain, although without protection and
you can delete them all the same.

In the scenario I outlined you will have one restore point remaining: the
first one. Nothing will happen to it.

If you had only one restore point, you removed it there will be nothing
left.

 

[Peter Foldes]

Norton (Symantec) installed by any chance ????????? If it is then you have your answer. Norton will and can strike at any time. Seen Norton work for 1 year or more before it struck

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

You can't run two antivirus programs at the same time . .

Of course you *can*. It's a very bad idea, but it's certainly
possible.

 

[Michael Palumbo]

I think a restore point is created automatically when you downloaded
something and installed.

If you installed five packages today, there will be five restore points.
If you want to restore the system to the second one all subsequent will be
gone. I am not quite sure, but it seems the point you are restoring to
will also be gone but the folders will remain, although without protection
and you can delete them all the same.

In the scenario I outlined you will have one restore point remaining: the
first one. Nothing will happen to it.

If you had only one restore point, you removed it there will be nothing
left.

The problem James has described is this;

After a reboot, ALL restore points are erased, no matter what he's done
previously. He's not restoring to an earlier point and losing restore
points, he's simply restarting his computer.

I'll look into other possible causes, but I'm still leaning toward something
writing to the disk prior to Windows taking over the disk access chores,
this is most often the culprit for this.

Mic

 

[Michael Palumbo]

Of course you *can*. It's a very bad idea, but it's certainly
possible.

Point taken . . .

Of course, someone *can* drink acid too, it's just a very bad idea.

I usually consider bad ideas something to put in the "can't do" or "don't
do" category.

Mic

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Point taken . . .

Of course, someone *can* drink acid too, it's just a very bad idea.

I usually consider bad ideas something to put in the "can't do" or "don't
do" category.

OK, but I think it's very important to distinguish between "can't" and
"shouldn't." They are after all very different things.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

OK, but I think it's very important to distinguish between "can't" and
"shouldn't." They are after all very different things.

At the risk of pointing out what everyone finds obvious, let me add
that we don't have to worry about what we can't do, but we certainly
need to worry about what we shouldn't do.

 

[JamesJ]

Not using Norton (anymore). Slowed my system down to a crawl.

James

Norton (Symantec) installed by any chance ????????? If it is then you have
your answer. Norton will and can strike at any time. Seen Norton work for 1
year or more before it struck

 

[JamesJ]

I've even uninstalled the PC Tools software and the restore point was
erased.

James

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

What other utilities do you have installed?

 

[AlexB]

I hate being a troll but the word Norton strikes fear in my heart from my
past experience. I am curious how they have survived all these years leaving
so many bad trails and ruined computers in their wake.