System Restore Problems

[ft]

Hello All,
I have two machines both running WinXP SP/1 with all current updates.
On machine #2, I can use System Restore to restore my system back to
any available date. No problems; works fine.
On machine #1, however, I have a different story.
I can't get System Restore to get my computer back to ANY of the
available dates listed. When I try to restore machine#1, it appears to
go through the motions of doing a restore and then re-boots the
system. But when the system comes back up, I get the following message
from the System Restore utility: "Your computer can not be restored to
blah blah blah. If you wish to restore to another date blah blah blah.
No changes have been made to your system".
This occurs with EVERY date I pick!
I gained access to the System Volume Information folder and I can see
the dozens and dozens of folders with all the files. All the files are
there and everything seems to be in order. But I can not get XP to
restore a single one of them!
Has anyone any experience with this problem and, more inportantly, can
anyone tell me how to fix it?
I've tried using System Restore from Safe Mode but I get the same
problem. I've also made sure that there was no virus checkers running.
I don't understand why it works on one of the machines but not on the
other.
Thank you in advance for any assistance.
Regards.

 

[bronco7]

Just a flying guess here: go to the good unit and see how
much space you have alotted for restore. Now compare it
to the bad boy. My guess is it is set at the low end.
Very easy to correct.

 

[Alex Nichol]

When I try to restore machine#1, it appears to
go through the motions of doing a restore and then re-boots the
system. But when the system comes back up, I get the following message
from the System Restore utility: "Your computer can not be restored to
blah blah blah. If you wish to restore to another date blah blah blah.
No changes have been made to your system".

If it has got into trouble, it is probably sensible to clear it out and
let it start clean: the logs required to follow the chain of points back
to a previous one are probably hopelessly confused. In System -
System Restore. Check 'Disable System Restore, and OK, reboot. Now
have Folder Options - View set to show Hidden files, and *not* Hide
Protected mode ones and delete everything in the System Volume
Information folder on each drive

Start SR up again, and I suggest reviewing the settings for each drive.
There is not much point having it enabled on data drives, and on ones
with System or Programs I would reduce the space allotted if more than
say 1GB - I use 500MB, the minimum is 200 which will only handle maybe a
week of points. But the default of 12% of a drive seems too much for
its own good on modern large drives