System Restore doesn't work..

Prior to Jan 29 2009 every time I tried to use System Restore, I got the message: "Restoration Incomplete. Your computer cannot be restored to..(date I selected). So on Jan 29 I did a complete new installation of Windows, even as far as reformatting the hard drive. Today I tried the System Restore again for the first time after the new installation and I still get the same message. This is the way my system is set up.

Windows XP, Service Pack 3
CA Internet Security Suite (Anti Virus, Anti Spam and Anti Spyware)
Zone Alarm Pro Firewall

I have two internal hard drives C: & D:

I have an external large hard drive partitioned into four drives E:, F:, G: & H:

I boot from the C: drive and I use the D: drive for storage of installation programs and registration keys. E:, F: & G: are for backup only and the H: drive is labeled my Temporary drive. It has a Temp folder to which I have moved my Temporary Internet Files folder.

In my System Restore settings I have it set to monitor Drives C: & H:. The other drives have been turned off.

Now what popped into my mind while making this thread was that I have also moved my paging file to the D: drive and my question would be this.

Since I moved my paging file (pagefile.sys) to the D: drive and I also turned off the System Restore monitoring to this drive, would that cause the system not to be able to be restored?

In case you are wondering why I moved the paging file and the Temporary Internet Files folder, since I had so much space on these other drives I figured it would make the system work a bit more efficiently.

 

If you only formatted the C: drive, I would try this.
Disable System Restore, then reboot the computer.
Open Windows Explorer, go into Folder Options, choose to Show All Hidden Files and Folders, and uncheck Hide Protected Operating System Files.
Then delete all folders named 'System Volume Information' on all hard drives.

Then enable System Restore. This will eliminate any possibility of corrupted files in the System Restore folders.

 

Well I reinstalled the System Restore so all System Volume Information files are empty now.

 

Well I don't know since reinstalling System Restore removes all the restore points and empties the System Volume Information folders. I will have to wait until I have several points up on the calendar. Also I decided to move the page file to the Temporary hard drive which has System Restore turned in the event that it also may have been the cause of the problem.

 

Continuing System Restore Problems

[FONT= "Arial"]A while back I posted about having System Restore problems.
http://www.windowsbbs.com/windows-xp/81648-system-restore-doesnt-work.html
I followed all the suggestions that were made and unfortunately the problem still hasn't been resolved. The only thing I wasn't able to do was delete the System Volume Information folders. Every time I tried to delete them I got the message "Cannot delete MountPointManagerRemoteDatabase: Access is denied ".

As a last resort I am considering doing an in-place re installation of Windows XP. I would appreciate a comment as to my consideration or any other information that could be helpful.

Thanks [/FONT]

 

Hi Sfantasia,

As luck would have it, I was recently involved with a posted members problem that involved a "Help and Support" malfunction. We tried almost every known fix for this and all were unsuccessful until suferdude2 suggested a tool know as Dial-a-Fix. I noticed one of the things included in the tools section was a reinstall for "system restore ". Since you are now at the stage were you are considering a windows reinstall, it may be worth giving this tool a shot. See:
http://www.windowsbbs.com/windows-xp/82216-help-support-error-message.html#post448611

Original xp cd maybe required.....
Follow suferdude2's suggestion in thread #18 of
downloading this,

download dial a fix

Once downloaded and installed:
*Hit the green check mark button and then the go button, when done
*Click on the tools hammer button
*Select "reinstall System Restore "

--------------------------
I must admit I have suggested this more as a curiosity about the miracles Dial-a Fix seems to produce. While other members who have posted here can and will get you past this problem with out having to resort to a reinstall of windows, I am also going to give you a link to past archived posts on the subject of "System Restore ". You may wish to look these over to see if there is something you may have missed while trying to fix this your self. Here's the list:
past archived files on System Restore

 

System Restore Doesn't Work, Windows XP Support, Windows XP technical support
questions. Legacy and new Windows XP versions and Windows

 

Hi Sfantasia,

Are you thinking, maybe, System Restore is a kind of mirror of your main HDD?

System Restore is used to return your computer to an earlier state if you have a sys failure or other major problem with your computer. The point of System Restore is to restore your 'puter to a workable state without you having to reinstall the operating system and lose your data files in the process. It takes snapshots of your computer system state and saves them as restore points. Snapshots are taken automatically and are restored through the System Restore Wizard.

Also, what size do you have your System Restore set to and what size is your pagefile.sys set to? And, how big is your "C" hard drive and "D" hard drive? (your "D" drive is on the second connector, right?)

 

jpChris;

I am very much aware of what System Restore does. Like I said in the very top post I have 6 hard drives. The C; drive, 80 GB, is my System drive. The D: drive, 40 GB, I use to store any downloaded programs and updates. I rarely install programs directly from the download mirrors. I prefer to save them, especially the ones I have paid for and which have installation keys. I just save them in their own folders on the D: drive.

Then I have 4 external hard drives E:, F:, G: & H: which are 75 GB each. The E:, F:, & G: drive are mainly for back up and the I: drive I use as my Temporary drive. I configured my system to use the I: drive to store my Temporary Internet Files as well as my Cookies. I have my System Restore enabled on only the C: drive and the I: drive since the data on all the other drives rarely changes.

I have 2 pagefiles one on the C: drive and one on the I: drive and they both have been set with a 2046 - 4092 MB custom size. My system has allocated 3025 MB to both of them.

Now above someone referred me to a program, Dial-A-Fix, but unfortunately the link they provided did not have any link to this program but through Google I found it and I ran it and I did repairer my System Restore. When it finished it removed all restore points and created a System Checkpoint. It also enabled my to access the System Restore feature which I wasn't able to do, so I noticed one positive change already. Tomorrow I will attempt to restore back to this System Checkpoint to see if it was successful. I will report back either way.

 

Thanks Pete;

That's the reason I only did the C: and I: drive, since they both have a pagefile and the I: drive also has my Temporary Internet Files and Cookies on it. I have had several people tell me, not on this forum, that I was making a mistake not enabling all the drives.

 

Hi Sfantasia,

Well, you certainly have enough storage. Just out of curiosity, is your XP disk just XP, or XP w\SP1, or SP2?

The reason I ask is that SP2 (I have the disk) causes my system to crash.
And, after scrounging around on the net, SP3 can cause problems, too.

I trust that you've already disabled the Windows firewall since you have ZAP. Have you tried disabling CA Internet Security Suite, ZAP and everything else from the Task Mangler prior to trying to set a restore point?

Also, I ran across several others with the same problem:

"Can't Set A Restore Point:

According to Knowledge base Q322246,

This issue may occur if the manufacturer's drivers for a HighPoint RAID controller type HPT370, HPT370A, or HPT372 are installed. This issue may occur with driver revisions 2.30 and 2.31, which are not digitally signed.

How to deal with it:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q322246 "

If you have XP with SP1 or SP2, you might try to install just the OS and see if you can create a restore point. Then install the updates and see if you can create a restore point. If so, then reinstall your apps one at a time and see if you can create a restore point. If not, you've narrowed down where the culprit is.

Granted, it will take a few days but if it's a service pack problem, MS will provide no cost support (I think). If it's an app problem, then contact the Co.

Again, out of curiosity, have you inspected the disk for any flaw in the medium? My original XP disk had a hole that you could only see with a magnifying glass. I could install, but had serious issues with running programs.

Have you tried to open Administrative Tools, click Computer Management, and then click Services and Applications. Click Services, and double-click System Restore Services from the list. Verify the service is started and running. If not, under Service status, click Start and change the startup type to Automatic?

 

I have Windows XP Home Edition which I upgraded to SP3 when it became available. I have never had any problems with anything except System Restore, and the only problem I had was restoring back to a previous restore point. I am able to create a restore point however I am waiting for 2 system checkpoint to occur so I can see if I am able to restore back to the previous day. When I ran the Dial-AA-Fix and re-installed the System Restore it deleted all my old restore points and created a System Checkpoint. The I updated my flash and shockwave and after that I created a Restore Point. I was going to wait until the next day for another System Checkpoint to be created but unfortunately Windows Updated so I didn't want to restore back before that so I am going to wait for two consecutive System Checkpoints to see of I can restore back to the previous on.

Both my computers, the XP and the Vista I assembled from components and used Microsoft installation disks, not OEM's. You can click on the little white down arrow to the right of My System over on the left under my member name to see what my XP looks like.

 

Hi Sfantasia,

After you get this straightened out,

Go to http://tinyurl.com/3rw0 and download SysRestorePoint.exe v 1.2
which will make it easy to manually initiate restore points when you wish.

The points you do yourself seem to "take" better than the auto ones.

Go to http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt
and download the ERUNT utility by Lars Hederer. It does a better job
than System Restore. The README file explains all.

You will then have "belt and suspenders" protection against getting
into a jam like this in the future.

 

I appreciate the comments antik, however I am old school. I prefer NOT to circumvent the normal Windows procedures in handling system features such as System Restore.

 

The recommended utilities do not replace, alter or circumvent
normal Windows system functions.

System Restore checkpoints at "significant system events ".
*automatically every 24 hours during times of inactivity.
*before install or uninstall a restore point compliant program.
*when you install an unsigned driver.
*immediately before installing a Windows update.
*before a Restore operation, so the user can undo that restore.

It is possible to have days where no checkpoint is created. You don't
want to lose everything done since the last checkpoint, just go back to where you were before doing the thing that damaged the registry.

Manual checkpoints are a normal windows function
Start> All Programs> Accessories> System Tools
> System Restore> Create a restore point> Next
>Type in a name for the restore point>Click Create

SysRestorePoint.exe does it fast, easy and convenient,
so that you will do it more often. I believe a similar
script is standard in Vista.

System restore only stores changes to the system since the creation
of the previous restore point, and all restore points are linked. If you
restore the computer to a previous date, System Restore may have to use several checkpoints to fully recreate the registry. If any point is corrupted, then a restore is no longer possible. Nothing tells you that a link in the chain is corrupted. The only time you know there is a problem is when you try to use it and it fails. Reinstalling gets it going again but all old restore points are lost.

System restore does more than just back up the registry. XP’s
System Restore reinstates the registry, local profiles, COM+ database, Windows File Protection (WFP) cache (wfp.dll), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) database, the Microsoft IIS metabase, and files that the utility copies by default into a Restore archive.

ERUNT is old school.
It is the ERU (Emergency Recovery Utility)
that was provided with Win9x updated to work with NT and XP. It does a complete back-up of the registry, without all those additional files, the checkpoints are standalone, you can delete them at will and you can burn one to CD or move it to a folder and save it forever.