Discussing System Restore

Dude
To be honest, I've never been afraid to use it. I've never had any type of problem with it. It's always created restore points on it's own and has never let me down. I don't expect miracles from it though. There are some things that it's just not meant to do and I realize this. It always amazes me that there seems to be so many that have trouble with it. Perhaps I'm just one of the luckier ones. I use an older version of Drive Image too. I just don't see any sense to going that route as long as SR does what it's supposed to. Sooner or later it'll probably bite me but then I'll have DI sitting on the side so I don't worry about it. It's probably time for me to get something else for imaging though being that my DI is getting to getting to be a bit out of date. I've been messing with BootIt on another computer and I must say, I'm quite impressed. Image, partition, and boot manager (haven't tried that) software and the wholes works costs $30 and it all fits on one floppy disk. Neat! It hasn't failed to do anything I've asked of it yet. I'll probably be purchasing it in the near future.

Joe
I did the search thing and found a few where it worked too. It still baffles me as to why it would work though. My first thoughts were pretty much the same as yours. Maybe it's just a disk space thing. Another possibility I thought of, though probably not likely, is that the user tried to restore from an older restore point. If there was a corrupt point somewhere in the mix it would fail. Moving the slider lower would delete the older points and force the user to pick a newer one. One that didn't have the corrupt point(s) in the mix. This doesn't seem likely though because most have restore points that go back a long way and I would think that most people would try the newer ones first. Whatever the reason, I guess if it works, who am I to argue?

Geri
There is no way to set SR for a certain number of days. Mine has seven days because the partition I have windows on is only 4GB in size. SR is set to the default of 12% of the drive which is about 490 MB. Evidently, using that amount of disk space there's only enough room for 7 days. There used to be more but windows keep growing you know, so it takes more space for each restore point than it used to. You should probably set yours back a bit. I doubt you'd ever want to go back 3 months. Unless you never installed or changed anything on your system you'd have a heck of a time straightening it all out. When you slide the bar back it'll show you the amount of space it'll use a particular setting. If it were me, I'd slide it to the minimum and then keep an eye on SR every once in a while to see how many restore points it keeps. If it's not enough for you, you can always increase it.

They're located in the root of your c: drive in a folder named System Volume Information. If you're using the NTFS file system you won't be able to access the folder without a slight tweak to the properties of the folder so don't be surprise if you try to open it and get an error message of some type.

 

Geri

Billy Bob is right. What MS is referencing are only those things in your User profile.

 

BillyBob

That is true, and I would not have a clue on many that I lost.

I would only keep maybe a months worth, Some programs I don't use often so I would not know within a week if there was a problem.

I like to keep them because of Windows updates, because of some horror stories that I have heard because of windows updates

Geri

 

Zander

Thanks that's an idea.
No I would never go back 3 months, I wouldn't have a clue on everything that I would lose or how to get them back.

The thing with daily back ups is that I would be using a lot of CD RW's, at least 7 days worth and then coping over the first one.
Geri

 

System Restore is a limited backup for the OS.

BB, you write about MS updates being taken off, well that's the idea if there is a problem: http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=41985

Or if there is some other problem and there is a need to go back however many days and MS updates were done in-between, well they have to be installed again along with any other System changes. How different is this to any other sort of backup in principle?

The bottom line here is as long as SR's limitations are understood, it can be a lifesaver; the alternative for those that don't do drive imaging would be a OS reinstall if SR wouldn't be available.

Regards - Charles

 

Christer
I Agree. I do not think a nastie can actually get into a RP once it has been made IF IT WERE CLEAN when made

But, Lets says I have 7 days worth of RPs. I have not run any checks for several days. I run a check today and find that I have Spyware of some sort.

If I am lucky and PAY ATTENTION the checker should ( I believe ) tell me it is in a RP. If it does not then how can I be sure that the darn thing did not sneak in 5 days ago ? I don't think I can be sure. So I think it should be BYE-BYE to RPs. At least after the clean up.

And as to rembering what the system was like a week ago. HA, HA, I have problems remembering what changes I may have made yesterday.

So again. I think System Restore has to be setup and used to fit the INDIVIDUAL use ( user ).

Some swear at it. Some swear by it.

Like my case the other day when RegSeeker did A LOT of cleaning ( something like 50-60 entires ). I checked them out before deleting and for once they were all 100% ligitament. Before I ran RegSeeker I was getting ( no surprise ) " Can't find messages After cleaning the messages no longer appeared.

Now I ask. WHY, do I want an RP form the day before hanging around.?

And I would bet $25 that Christer Would surely be updating his images. I do not think either Him or I would care to have to repeat the 1/2 to 1 hours work just becaus we forgot to update the backups. I have been there and done that and I WAS NOT a bit happy.

BillyBob

 

Also, before I do go messing around I make a RP and NAME it.

Say something like B4addingXYZ. Or B4 Cleaning out Spyware.

By doing that I could see maybe keeping several days worth. But to have them all named the default System Check Point, NO, NO.

I have found that when SR does make a RP when installing something it does name it. I do like that Idea. I have used them a couple of times. Mostly as A test though just to see what happened.

BillyBob

 

Billy Bob,

And as to rembering what the system was like a week ago. HA, HA, I have problems remembering what changes I may have made yesterday.
Ditto, that's why I use things called Pencil and paper.

I seem to be minority, I keep a log of changes/additions to the system.

About backups: I assume that you backup user data, how long do you keep the copy(s) made prior to the the latest?

Do you get rid of all but the latest? Father Son? Grandfather cycle?

I think about RP's in the same fashion. Or my drive imaging backups.

I think somewhere in this thread, Christer mentioned trouble shooting. More than once, I've restored to find the origin of a problem, didn't stay there - undid the restore, and either changed or uninstalled the offender.

Lots of ways to think about SR, it's a tool, with the advantages/disadvantages of any tool.

Regards - Charles

 

I only have one program ( Quicken ) that I really need to keep data backups for. I keep one right in the Program folder but I also keep one on a CRDW. They both get overwriten each time. All I need to do is change D: to I:. It does ask. But I say overwrite. So far no problem. But that does not mean that one can't/won't pop up tomorrow.

In my mentioned case of a few days ago I just plain Shutdown and restarted SR.

You will get no argument/opposite view there. And it is a tool that needs to be worked with to see what is the better way. One way may be better for you. My way may be better for me. Geris' way may be better for him.

That is what I think these discussions should be for. They bring out different ways/ideas. And it appears as though they ALL work.

BillyBob

 

I'm a ghost fan, and use dates in the file names so it's easy to keep files in order, and also make sure the disk is clean of viruses and other malware before ghosting it. It's easy to recover a single file (or any combination of files and/or folders) from the image if it's needed, so ghost makes an ideal backup of the disk contents. The compression is not as good as that obtained with a zip program, but it's around 50%. And by keeping the system partition small, the *.gho file is easily saved to a DVD, which avoids the problems of long term storage on magnetic media.

I do keep SR available for short term problems, but have only had to use it once (and it worked well), so haven't much experience personally, although I have associates who have used it with good results and no problems I've heard about.

EDIT: I should mention that my data partitions are aslo ghosted and stored on DVD, separately.

It's easy to have the best of both worlds.

 

Now that is what I call thinking.

If I make my own RPs I do the same with names.

BTW. I have had days in the past where I made SEVERAL RPs in one day and NAMING each one. That was the day that I Updated Windows. Removed some software. And added some software. And otherwise did general cleanup afterwords.

Also that was the day that I did use the Pencil and Paper that someone mentioned.

But once I got all done I waited a couple of days to be sure there were no problems and then shutdown and restarted SR.

BillyBob

 

Newt , surferdude2

How did you get GoBack to work on XP ? Seems to me when I tried [ a long time ago ] to install GoBack on my PC it would Not install ( my copy of GoBack is the original ver. when it 1st came out) {getting to where I need to add more memory in my head and could sure use a system restore point also }


Thank You......purplemtn.....

 

Hi purplemtn,

You'll need to get the new version of GoBack for XP. It's 3.2

Best regards.

Edit: Since Symantec bought the rights, they are calling their release version 4.0

 

Sure, with the understanding that some are better than others.

You got it!

Regards - Charles

 

surferdude2

thanks.

guess ill stay with SR and back up to external HD untill I win the lottery..


purplemtn

 

Just a thought, but in the cases where someone has tried SR and it failed, how full was the hard drive? I ask this because maybe the HD was too full to do the SR. Lowering the space used by SR to 6% then put it back up to 12% would free up 6% of used HD space and thus giving SR the 'space' it needs to function correctly.

 

Hello mordin,

Just a thought, but in the cases where someone has tried SR and it failed, how full was the hard drive?

From my own experience, on those occasions when restore didn't work, the monitored Partitition was almost 80% free. What seems to be the deciding factor is how large the change between the current state and the restore point being restored to. This, with the understanding that everything else is ok, for instance, no corrupt restore points in the chain.

Of course, a close to full drive/partition would create all sorts of problems, not just with SR.

Regards - Charles