System Restore has packed up
maxfindlay
My System Restore suddenly seems to have stopped working and I’d be very
grateful if someone could tell me how to get it working again. I have a
one-year-old laptop running XP Professional. Everything seems to have been
working fine. Last night, though, I discovered that my System Restore has
stopped working properly. After I select a restore point, a box comes up that
reads: “Changes made to drive(s) E: after this point cannot be reversed
because the drive was either excluded from System Restore monitoring or was
turned off or removed”. Drive E is the name usually given to the USB slot
where I plug in a memory stick / my external hard drive. I have never wanted
System Restore to monitor my memory stick / external hard drive but, as fas
as I know, I’ve never done anything in System Restore to suggest that I might
ever have wanted it to cover Drive E.
Ignoring this pop-up box mesage, I click on Next. My PC then seems to go
through the normal preliminary stages for a restoration but, when Windows
restarts, the system appears to hang for a bit at the home screen (I get to
stare at my desktop theme for a while anyway) and then up comes a box that
says: “Restoration incomplete. Your computer cannot be restored to [your
chosen date]”. After some experimenting, I have discovered that it doesn’t
matter what date I select for the Sytem Restore. In all cases, I get exactly
the same message.
I don’t know what’s happened or what I’ve inadvertently done to cause this
problem. But i would be very grateful if someone could help me solve it.
Thank you.
maxfindlay
Ǝиçεl
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/faqsrwxp.mspx
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Troubleshoot System Restore “Restore Point Failures” in Windows XP
<http://bertk.mvps.org/html/srfail.html>
-=
Mark Adams
"maxfindlay" wrote:
Restore points are probably corrupted. Create a new restore point, then go
into Disk Cleanup and click the More Options tab. Click the Clean Up button
under System Restore. This will delete all of the previous restore points
except the one you just created.
Daave
maxfindlay wrote:
> My System Restore suddenly seems to have stopped working and I'd be
> very grateful if someone could tell me how to get it working again. I
> have a one-year-old laptop running XP Professional. Everything seems
> to have been working fine. Last night, though, I discovered that my
> System Restore has stopped working properly. After I select a restore
> point, a box comes up that reads: "Changes made to drive(s) E: after
> this point cannot be reversed because the drive was either excluded
> from System Restore monitoring or was turned off or removed". Drive E
> is the name usually given to the USB slot where I plug in a memory
> stick / my external hard drive. I have never wanted System Restore to
> monitor my memory stick / external hard drive but, as fas as I know,
> I've never done anything in System Restore to suggest that I might
> ever have wanted it to cover Drive E.
Right-click My Computer and select Properties. Click the System Restore
tab. Highligt E: and click Settings. Check the box for "Turn off System
Restore for this drive."
> Ignoring this pop-up box mesage, I click on Next. My PC then seems to
> go through the normal preliminary stages for a restoration but, when
> Windows restarts, the system appears to hang for a bit at the home
> screen (I get to stare at my desktop theme for a while anyway) and
> then up comes a box that says: "Restoration incomplete. Your computer
> cannot be restored to [your chosen date]". After some experimenting,
> I have discovered that it doesn't matter what date I select for the
> Sytem Restore. In all cases, I get exactly the same message.
>
> I don't know what's happened or what I've inadvertently done to cause
> this problem. But i would be very grateful if someone could help me
> solve it. Thank you.
It sounds like at some point you installed a program that interferes
with System Restore (examples: Norton, Kaspersky, Zone Alarm). More
info:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/srfail.html
One way around this is to change the offending program's settings (if
possible) or to downright uninstall it! If you would rather not do that
(at least right away), then perhaps you can run System Restore either in
Safe Mode or in Safe Mode with Command Prompt. For the latter, please
see this page:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304449
Then again, the more important question is:
Why do you need to run System Restore right now? :-)
Ǝиçεl
Link correction,
Frequently Asked Questions Regarding System Restore in Windows XP
<http://www.paulsxp.com/restore_all.html>
-=-
maxfindlay
maxfindlay
all you guys.
maxfindlay
Daave
YW. Which solution worked for you, by the way?
maxfindlay
/rebooting/ turning SR back on again. It's a bugger losing all the old SR
points but since I couldn't access them anyway, I had nothing to lose really.
It was just that I wanted to solve a problem I've got with Windows firewall /
AVG antivirus / possible Windows update / maybe I've screwed up the registry
through over-enthusiastic use of CCleaner (I've posted a separate message
about it in the forum) and I thought System Restore might be a quick answer
to the problem. Thats when I discovered it didn't work.
Bennett Marco
>In the end, I went for the nuclear option of turning off System Restore
>/rebooting/ turning SR back on again. It's a bugger losing all the old SR
>points but since I couldn't access them anyway, I had nothing to lose really.
>It was just that I wanted to solve a problem I've got with Windows firewall /
>AVG antivirus / possible Windows update / maybe I've screwed up the registry
>through over-enthusiastic use of CCleaner (I've posted a separate message
>about it in the forum) and I thought System Restore might be a quick answer
>to the problem. Thats when I discovered it didn't work.
Maybe it's time you learned about using backup software, hmm?
maxfindlay
Thanks for this. I'm not sure, though, that backing-up (which I do regularly)
would have solved the Windows firewall / AVG antivirus / possible conflict
with Windows update / maybe I've screwed up the registry problem I mentioned,
would it?
Daave
cloning your hard drive). If the registry gets screwed up or if you PC
becomes compromised, all you would need to is roll back your system
drive to the state it was in *before* those things happened. You truly
would have the ability to undo *any* screwup.