System Restore problem

[William B. Lurie]

My XP refuses to allow me to change the System Restore
setting. It says it has encountered an error or problem
with one of the drives, and I should reboot and try again.
When I do, same result. It won't let me stop the process.

My system has two hard drives. Each has XP on it.
One is Master, one is Slave. Neither one is
partitioned. Advice, please?

William B. Lurie

 

[Will Denny]

Hi William

Which particular SR setting are you trying to change? SR could have become corrupted and you may have to delete all existing Points for SR to work properly again.

 

[William B. Lurie]

Thanks for looking, Will. I only want to maintain *one* restore point.
So when I was running just one HD, I'd go to Control
Panel>System>SysRestore and check the box to turn off all
restore points....then reboot and have it
make ONE restore point again. Now that I have two HDs,
it lists both HDs but won't let me do anything with that
SP check box. What I want is to have just *one* restore
point, which I'll delete and allow a new one to be
created, once a month. My idea of backup.......
Bill L.

 

[Will Denny]

Hi Bill

A couple of points, if I may? SR is not a backup utility and shouldn't be treated as such - that is my general blurb about SR. To allow just one SR Point to be created on a monthly basis can't be set up via Control Panel and the SR settings - you would have to do that via the Registry - unless you intend to go via Disk Cleanup>More Options every time.

Are all SR settings unavailable for both disks?

 

[William B. Lurie]

Hi Bill

A couple of points, if I may? SR is not a backup utility and shouldn't be treated as such - that is my general blurb about SR. To allow just one SR Point to be created on a monthly basis can't be set up via Control Panel and the SR settings - you would have to do that via the Registry - unless you intend to go via Disk Cleanup>More Options every time.

Are all SR settings unavailable for both disks?

Will, if you look back at advice I've received in this newsgroup,
you'll see that that is what was recommended----to cancel SR, so
that all old Restore Points vanish, and then re-energize, thereby
creating just one new Restore Point...... It's my preference to use
one restore point, up to a month old, as my safety net. Before I set
up the Slave HD, it worked fine. Now that I have two HD, one Master
and one Slave, the System Restore window and check box aren't working.
And I have only gone to try it on the Master HD, which is where I
want it. With multi-GB systems and files, I decided to make the
Slave HD my real backup, but can't see anything wrong with regarding
the one-restore-point SR as a backup utility. What is its real
purpose, if not as a backup utility?

If XP and its System Restore philosophy just won't allow it, when
two HDs are present, I have another alternative, perhaps a bit less
convenient: I can run the Master HD as a single-drive system, with the
established one-restore-point philosophy, and, once a month, add the
second HD, copy the Master over to it as my real backup, and then
take the Slave HD off until the next month.
Bill Lurie

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

I think that you have got the wrong idea of the purpose of System Restore.

System Restore takes a 'snapshot' of various system files at a given interval. You can see which files/folder SR monitors/doesn't monitor by typing the following from Start>Run

%systemroot%\system32\restore\filelist.xml

I must emphasise - SR is **not** a backup utility and should not be regarded as such.

 

[William B. Lurie]

Hi

I think that you have got the wrong idea of the purpose of System Restore.

System Restore takes a 'snapshot' of various system files at a given interval. You can see which files/folder SR monitors/doesn't monitor by typing the following from Start>Run

%systemroot%\system32\restore\filelist.xml

I must emphasise - SR is **not** a backup utility and should not be regarded as such.

Okay, Will, that's not its purpose. I have my own method, that works
for me. But is there an explanation for the error window which I
reported? What is it trying to make me understand, and why? Have I
explained my configuration adequately?
WBL

 

[Alex Nichol]

Thanks for looking, Will. I only want to maintain *one* restore point.
So when I was running just one HD, I'd go to Control
Panel>System>SysRestore and check the box to turn off all
restore points....then reboot and have it
make ONE restore point again. Now that I have two HDs,
it lists both HDs but won't let me do anything with that
SP check box. What I want is to have just *one* restore
point, which I'll delete and allow a new one to be
created, once a month. My idea of backup.......

If it has got in a tangle I think it is best to turn it right off, and
start over.

Start by in Control Panel - Admin tools - Services, looking for the
System Restore Service, highlight and click Stop.

With that not running you ought to be able to go to the System - System
Restore and Disable. Then reboot. Now have Folder Options - View set
to show Hidden files, and *not* Hide Protected mode ones and go to the
System Volume Information folder of each drive and delete everything in
it.

Then start up SR again. This time, take Settings on each drive, and on
the one you do not want to monitor check 'disable on this drive'. On
the other one I would cut the space allotted down, minimum being 200 and
a sensible general level probably 400 or 500.

But *don't* regard this a s a backup. For one thing it does not back up
data - just system components and program executables and libraries. It
is not intended as a backup, but as a means of unwinding problems that
have arisen in installed software and settings over a period measured in
days.

If you want to cut out old points the way to do it is to run Disk
Cleanup, and on its More Options there is a button to delete all but the
most recent restore point

 

[Will Denny]

If it has got in a tangle I think it is best to turn it right off, and
start over.

Start by in Control Panel - Admin tools - Services, looking for the
System Restore Service, highlight and click Stop.

With that not running you ought to be able to go to the System - System
Restore and Disable. Then reboot. Now have Folder Options - View set
to show Hidden files, and *not* Hide Protected mode ones and go to the
System Volume Information folder of each drive and delete everything in
it.

Then start up SR again. This time, take Settings on each drive, and on
the one you do not want to monitor check 'disable on this drive'. On
the other one I would cut the space allotted down, minimum being 200 and
a sensible general level probably 400 or 500.

But *don't* regard this a s a backup. For one thing it does not back up
data - just system components and program executables and libraries. It
is not intended as a backup, but as a means of unwinding problems that
have arisen in installed software and settings over a period measured in
days.

If you want to cut out old points the way to do it is to run Disk
Cleanup, and on its More Options there is a button to delete all but the
most recent restore point

Hi Alex

I was trying to eliminate the disabling of SR as I'm sure that there must be a better way to solve these SR problems. Certain SR files are being corrupted at some point by, I believe, one or two particular system files - dlls - possibly by an update??