System Restore

[deltapapa]

I have a fairly new laptop [6mths old] running Windows 7 Professional and have realised it's not holding a system restore point. At first I thought it was me believing I had done one when I hadn't but no!

It says it has completed one successfully but when I check it tells me no restore point has been set I don't even have to re-boot before it's lost. I get no error messages.

It is switched on, it has over 10GB of space set. My HDD is 500GB with over 380GB free space. I've tried turning off AVG but no difference. In fact there is nothing on this PC that wasn't on the last.

Has anyone any ideas?

[BOAC]

Control Panel/System/System Protection - check the settings and see if you have enabled restore.

[deltapapa]

Yes it is - that's what I meant when I said it is switched on but just to make sure that's the protection indicator shown in the image?

http://imageshack.us/a/img19/9716/mnt3.jpg

I'm totally baffled by this because it tells me it has set restore point successfully but then then tells me one hasn't been set when I go to look at it.

[mixture]

deltapapa,

System Restore is a waste of space and time, it has limited uses, and where there is a use for it, there's a 50/50 chance of it working correctly.

Learn how to do proper backups, and save your disk space for more productive uses.

[Loose rivets]

One of the reasons I returned that $1200 shard of solid metal was the plethora of drives created for its own benefit. I would love to have a restore mechanism that left the computer's HD totally free. (Apart from the space 'upstream' of C that's transparent to the user.)

If needed, I'd like to be able to:

1/ Restore to an assigned date.

2/Recover - If needed, even onto a virgin replacement HD Keeping all MY partitions would be a bonus. In other words, how I'd left it when it failed.

3/Or, worst scenario, Recover in the normal way, but still able to do it onto a new HD.

I'd also prefer to be carrying a Memory stick, or a USB hard drive, or worst case, a USB DVD/CD drive. (USB DVD the only option on that ASUS)

Clearly, a Stick with the OS on that could be used as a temporary boot device while away would be extremely valuable. I carry a Linux stick now which would get data off the disc and even allow printing etc., but it would be nice to get back in, in W7.

[BOAC]

dp - puzzling - have you allocated sufficient disk space for the restore?

LR - have you tried a Win7 boot USB?

[finncapt]

Have you tried changing the system restore page to just system restore on the c drive and seeing if you can create a restore point manually.

I am not sure, but if you are trying to restore all the drives you may need a hell of a lot if space and 10gb maybe nowhere near enough to allow one restore point let alone several.

[BOAC]

Yes, a good idea from fc. I'm not sure why you are setting 'restore' on the other 'drives' nor what the 'hidden' drives in your image are.

[Keef]

I suspect the restore point size is the issue. It sounds as if you have 120GB of "stuff" on your hard drive - 500GB minus 380GB free. That won't fit into a 10GB restore point.

I just checked mine - I think it's time for a clean-out because the restore folder is 486GB

While I share the cynicism about the dependability of System Restore, it did once save my bacon (and failed to do so a couple of times). I back up my "stuff" to four external drives on a four-weekly cycle (it's automated) and then delete the oldest ones on each drive when they start to get full. It's much easier to recover lost stuff from those backups, too.

[Loose rivets]

BOAC No, but your question lead me to this site. Thanks, I'll give it a go.

How to create a bootable Windows 7 USB flash drive | Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/business/2009/12/the-usb-flash-drive/)

I'm surprised it only requires such a small USB memory capacity.

I'm sticking with W7, but still some of the following is an issue to folk with the latest kit. i.e., those with W8 machines that they've downgraded to W7.


The problem with W8 is that the OS seems to be tied to the motherboard and every download has to be done separately. I gathered this from a protest from someone with multiple PCs who wanted to upgrade to 8.1 Certainly, my upgrade was a tediously long download and I wouldn't have wanted to do it multiple times.

Then there's the issue of the product key. That seems to be imbedded in the firmware and dealers have the means to access it. What about us mere mortals?

[deltapapa]

I've upped the size to 200GB and it makes no difference - tells it's created a PR successfully then when I check tells me no RP has been set.

The other drives are 1 external hard drive and 1 usb stick. All my work is saved externally the only things on the HDD are what came with the pc and my programmes. I haven't created a RP for the other drives but switched the protection on in case it made a difference there are off again now.

I would just feel more comfortable if I could get it work as it saved me a couple of times on my old PC.

[finncapt]

If it's any help my (wife's - I use Linux) settings are

Local disk c: system protection on - others off

Under system protection for local disk c.

I have the top option "restore system settings...."

I have the slider set to 3.17Gb.

It has 4 possible restore points with those settings but there may be room for more.

[BOAC]

dp - a few other suggestions (you may have tried!)

1) Create a restore point and then view the event log to see if there are any relevant comments

2) Switch sys restore off, reboot, switch it on and and try again

3) Make sure Vol shadow copy has started in services

4) Run sfc /scannow to see if you have any corrupt system files