Vista Missing Restore Points

[mikeh]

I've followed all the discussions on this subject but have not found an
answer to my problem. I'm running Vista Ultimate on a clean-install computer
with new hard disks. I can set a Restore point but it disappears after the
next boot; and Vista never automatically makes Restore points - there are
never any there until I manually make one, then it disappears after the next
boot.

This is not a dual boot computer; Vista was not an upgrade; Restore Points
are not turned off; I'm not running any Norton software; I have over 200GB
free on my HD; I have read all of Bert Kinney's articles. I am, however,
running Diskeeper but when I questioned Diskeeper they said that it was quite
definitely NOT Diskeeper that was the problem. But they would, wouldn't they?

Anybody got any ideas?

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

I would create a new admin account, and try restore there. It would help you
'narrow down' the problem, anyway. If it's the account, you can just copy
the old settings to the new. If not, a repair setup is called for, (perhaps
trying SFC first.)

Some Windows Vista functions may not work, or Windows Vista may stop
responding: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833
Windows Vista Help What are the system recovery options in Windows Vista:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/2b3724d1-f4ad-5b26-16dc-3e9e66f4be5e1033.mspx
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Mark L. Ferguson
..

 

[mikeh]

Bob, you might have the answer. When I run vssadmin I get "no items found
that satisfy the query". Presumably this means that I have no space for SR,
but what do I do to allocate some space?

And, yes, I've run a registry cleaner - is this the problem?

Thanks for your help.

 

[C.B.]

Bob, you might have the answer. When I run vssadmin I get "no items found
that satisfy the query". Presumably this means that I have no space for
SR,
but what do I do to allocate some space?

And, yes, I've run a registry cleaner - is this the problem?

Thanks for your help.

mikeh,

Why did you feel the need to run a registry cleaner? Please see the
link below:

http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28...&start=0&sid=72c98e8cbb32f001f1923a90b3d2639b

C.B.

 

[mikeh]

Bob,
When I type (as admin in command prompt) the resize command I get "Error:
The specified volume shadow copy storage association was not found".

If I list volumes I get "Volume path C:\
Volume name: \\?\Volume {long hex number}".

If I list Writers I get a long list of writers, all with "no errors".

This is a corner of Vista that I've never seen before!

Thanks for your help - and I'll desist from using a registry cleaner in
future.

 

[mikeh]

I tried twice: once by copying and pasting and once by typing each character,
but the response was the same. The other vss commands gave sensible answers,
didn't they?

Cheers

 

[mikeh]

Thanks for the suggestion. I have changed my Diskeeper options accordingly
but it has made no difference. But it seems to be the right thing to do
anyway, thanks.

 

[mikeh]

Thanks for the suggestion, Mark. At the moment I'm following suggestions from
Bob, from which it seems that there is definitely something wrong with my vss
storage. I'll keep your suggestion in mind, though, if all else fails. Thanks.

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

Excellent news, Mike. I will be glad if we find something new. Go for it.
Your fix would help many from now on.
( I remember when the XP group worked till we found how to shield the local
admin from local Policy. Tens of thousands have used that one.)
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[mikeh]

Bob: I tried resizing in safe mode and got this apocalyptic message:
"Eror:unexpected failure:Catastrophic failure"! But it wasn't the end of the
world, as on re-booting normally everything was OK (except restore points, of
course).

I noticed another thing yesterday. Windows Update installed the latest
updates and set a restore point before doing so. This restore point was
visible for half an hour or so, then it disappeared. This means that it is
not necessarily the re-booting that destroys the restore points, as I had
thought.

Where does that leave us?

 

[Mark]

I use Diskeeper on Vista Ultimate. I have no System Restore problems.

 

[mikeh]

Looks like my last posting has not appeared, so I'm trying again.

Resizing the ShadowStorage in Safe mode results in this message:
"Error:Unexpected failure:Catastrophic failure"

Wow! I've never had that before. Still, it wasn't as bad as it appeared in
that I rebooted normally and everything was fine - apart from the Restore
Point problem, of course.

I have another clue as to what is going on. When I make a manual restore
point or when Vista makes one after an update or program install/delete it
remains for about half an hour then disappears. So there is no problem in
making restore points but something is deleting them subsequently.

I'd be grateful for any more ideas.

Mike

 

[mikeh]

I had already tried sfc but not the examination of the log. so I did what
929833 suggested and Sfc came up with:

"Verification 97% complete. Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files
but was unable to fix some of them. Details are included in the CBS.Log
windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log"

So I did what 929833 suggested and issued "findstr" and redirected the
output to "sfcdetails.txt". But this file was empty when I looked at it, i.e.
findstr must have found no instance of "...cannot repair member file".

If I do a system recovery from the installation DVD will it destroy all my
installed programs and data? If so, I think that I'd rather live with the
restore problem!

 

[mikeh]

There's no problem with data - it's backed up each day, but what about the 87
programs that I have? It's taken me a year to get all these programs working
and it would take days to re-install them and weeks to set them up the way I
want them. To say nothing of all the fuss with re-registering them. Yes, the
whole disk is also backed up but there would be no point in restoring that,
as it too would have the restore point problem. If the System Recovery would
leave all the programs intact then that's fine; otherwise I'll put up with
having no Restore Points!

Have we reached the end of the line here? If so, then thank you very much
for all your help, you have been very patient.

Mike