Windows XP Pro System Restore fails

I'm attempting to do a System Restore back to 1/16 (which is the latest system check point). The System Restore goes through its gyrations and reboots. After the system boots, Chkdsk runs and says it has to check Drive C:. When it's finished, the system boots up and System Restore says "Can't restore. No changes have been made to your system." After that, the system will boot normally every time, but the problem for which I need the System Restore remains. It would seem that System Restore is restoring something that causes XP to think that C: needs checking which then causes System Restore to fail. Is there any way to fix this, or am I doomed to reformat and start from scratch?

 

What is the problem you are attempting to fix with System Restore?

Johanna

 

The problem that prompted this whole fiasco is that the TCP/IP stack is blown so the machine can't get online. I've had this problem before and fixed it by uninstalling and reinstalling the NIC. I made the apparent mistake of moving the NIC from one PCI slot to another without first uninstalling it after which the TCP/IP stack went south, so I moved it back, uninstalled it, let it reinstall itself and the TCP/IP stack is still blown. The idea was to do the System Restore now that the card is back where it originally was. That has worked in the past, but this time no matter what date I attempt to restore to, System Restore does its thing, the system reboots, Chkdsk runs, the system comes up and System Restore says "Sorry, couldn't restore, no changes have been made" and I'm back to square one. Thanks for the response.

 

Give this a try.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];299357

 

Have you tried installing the NIC through the add hardware or device Mgr? Sys Restore only checks system files (and mine never runs a chkdsk before or after a S.R. ) Are you sure the card is good?

Admin- may want to move this to Hardware

Johanna

 

The NIC was working fine up until I decided to move it. As I said, I've had the TCP/IP stack go south before and either uninstalling the NIC or doing a System Restore has always fixed it prior to this incident. I will give Zander's suggestion a try when I get home tonight. That may (hopefully) solve the immediate problem with the TCP/IP stack, however, the fact that the System Restore no longer works is a bigger concern to me. I'm prepared to format C: and start over if I have to, but I had hoped there might be something less drastic I could do to get the SR working again. Thanks again.

 

If you get your network connection back try turning off system restore, reboot and then turn it back on. Then see if it works. You may have a corrupt restore point. System restore is a incremental thing in that it when it creates a restore point it only saves the changes that were made since the last restore point was made. If you have a corrupt restore point, what happens is this. When you try to restore a point that was made 5 days ago and if any one of restore points made since should happen to be corrupt, SR will fail because it uses the restore point from 5 days ago plus all of those created since then.
If you do have a corrupt restore point, turning off system restore will delete all of your restore points and it should get it working again.

 

Okay, I'll give that a shot, thanks. I figure the SR problem is a corrupted restore point, as you suggest. I guess if I can get the TCP/IP problem solved, zapping all the previous restore points won't be a problem since theoretically the machine will be working properly at that point in time.

 

clarification

FYI: for anyone down the line reading this-
When you toggle system restore, all prior restore points are lost.

Johanna

 

Chon - having TCP/IP go bad on you is so unusual with XP as to indicate you may have other problems.

To do a repair of TCP/IP, try the routine shown Here. Should be less traumatic and maybe more effective than what you are doing now.

I also think at least a chkdsk /r and then sfc /scannow are in order to see if there is some easily corrected problem. And turn system restore off before doing any of the above then back on after all are done.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. The TCP/IP reset procedure didn't get it done. I tried it both in normal and safe modes. It generated a 4K log file in normal mode, FWIW. I will try the chkdsk and sfc things tonight when I get home and report results. I'm probably going to pick up another NIC this weekend and replace the existing one on the chance that it's a bad card that's the root of the problem.

 

Well, tonight's activities included uninstalling then removing the NIC, resetting TCP/IP via netsh (twice), installing a USB wireless adapter (in hopes that that might also reinstall TCP/IP), running chkdsk /r (ran all the way through with no indication of problems), and I just finished the sfc /scannow. That also completed with no indication of errors or problems. Oh, and I turned off System Restore after the install of the wireless adapter and before the second netsh reset, chkdsk and sfc. I've just rebooted the system again and...no joy. The VPN client that starts up as a service when the machine boots still craps out with an application error right after the logon dialog appears. Logging into the system is greeted with "Windows sockets initialization failed" from the same VPN client, then Mobile Device Properties comes up with "The TCP/IP network transport is not installed ". I guess the next thing to try is to uninstall and reinstall the VPN client, although I don't know how that could be hosing the TCP/IP stack itself after having been working for months.