Troubleshoot System Restore “Restore Point Failures” in Windows
XP
At any point during this troubleshoot procedure you feel
uncomfortable, help is a click away at the
AumHa System Restore Forum for support
For systems that have Norton
2006 - 2007 applications installed click
HERE.
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There are several application that will interfere with with
System Restore in Normal or Protected Mode causing a restoration
to fail. First try
Running System Restore in Safe Mode. This may
overcome the interference and allow the restoration to complete
successfully. Note: An UNDO restore point will not
be automatically created when System Restore is run in Safe
Mode. To have a current restore point to fall back on, create a
manual restore point in normal mode before entering Safe
Mode.
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If Real Player is installed on the system click
HERE and update to the latest version.
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IBM Rescue and Recovery with Rapid Restore - Microsoft System
Restore "Restore Points" are not preserved or System Restore
errors are logged in Event Viewer.
System Restore's Restore Points are not saved in IBM Rapid
Restore Ultra's backup. When restoring using Rapid Restore
Ultra, System Restore will log an error message in the Windows
Event Viewer and if you start System Restore, any prior System
Restore Points are not available.
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ZoneAlarm has been known to interfere with the restore
process. If restoring in Safe Mode doesn’t work, then you will
want to consider uninstalling ZoneAlarm as a troubleshooting
step.
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Zone Alarm version 6.5 has a bug that creates very
large .rdb files within the system. These .rdb files are
monitored by System Restore and thus end up in the restore
points located in the System Volume Information folder, along
with other locations on the system. The best advise is to revert
to an
earlier version of Zone Alarm. Then
disable
System Restore which will purge all existing restore points,
then turn it back on. For more information on this subject
please visit the
Zone Labs User Forum.
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If Microsoft Update is being used rather than Windows
Update, go back to using Windows Update. Run
Windows Update and let it complete. Reboot the system and
retry System Restore. I have only seen this issue mentioned once
in the public newsgroups. It was on a new HP system and
was accompanied by this
error message.
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For Systems shipped with a Recovery Partition, such as HP,
Compaq and Dell, to name a few, DO NOT let system
restore monitor these partitions. See
Disable Monitored Drives.
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Scan for Virus and Spyware infection.
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If the system will not boot, here’s a list of
Disaster Recovery Tools within WindowsXP.
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Make note of any error messages produced by System Restore or
any low Free Disk space warnings, exactly as they appear.
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Use the Event Viewer to investigate System Restore service
errors. To do this, follow these steps:
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Go to Start - Run and type eventvwr.msc and press
enter.
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In the left pane click on
System.
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Click the gray title “Source”
at the top of the source name column in the right pane to
sort by source name, look for "sr" and "srservice."
Double-click each of these services, and evaluate the event
description for any indication of the cause of the problem.
Make note of the Description, EventID and Source of these
Event Properties that show an Error or Warning.
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If you would like assistance in examining the "sr"
and "srservice" events, double click on each event
then, click on the button below the two arrows in the upper
right corner. This will copy the event information to the
clipboard. Paste the information for each event to a post at
AumHa System Restore Forum along with any other
error messages received. Please use a appropriate subject
line (including “System Restore”) when creating the
post. |
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Install the latest Service Pack (SP) for WindowsXP. SP1 (fixes
the locked files issue) and SP2 include bug fixes for System
Restore that may fix the problem.
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Confirm that the “Task Scheduler”, “System Restore Service” and
“Remote Procedure Call (RPC)”
are running:
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Click Start, click Run, and then type cmd /k net start then
press enter. Check to make sure that the Task Scheduler,
System Restore Services and
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) are running.
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To start the “Task Scheduler” Service.
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Go to Start - Run and type Services.msc then
press enter.
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Double click on “Task Scheduler”.
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Set ‘Startup type’ to Automatic then press Start and
Wait for the Service Control progress indicator to
close.
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Do the same if the “System Restore Service” was missing.
Close the Services window.
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Confirm and make note of the amount of the Free Disk Space on
all of the drives System Restore is monitoring.
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To check for Free Disk Space go to Start - Run and type diskmgmt.msc then
press enter. Look at each drive System Restore is monitoring
for free space.
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If the free space on any partition system restore is
monitoring falls below 50MB, System Restore will
SUSPEND & PURGE all restore points to
free up disk space. You should have already receive a low
free disk space message by now. System Restore will resume
monitoring when free disk space reaches 200MB’s.
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In most cases it is not necessary to have System Restore
monitor Partitions/drives other than the one Windows is
installed on. System Restore does not monitor data files.
Monitored File Extensions.
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How to disable a monitored drive in System Restore.
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Adjust the Disk Space Used by System Restore. By default
System Restore will use 12% disk space for most size drives.
With larger drives the data store can get quite large, which has
been know to cause problems in System Restore. Setting the data
store to just under 1GB should be adequate. Click
HERE for
more System Restore Health tips. Note: Reducing
the data store size will purge the oldest restore points on a
FIFO (first in first out) bases and leave as many recent restore
points as the new size will allow.
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Test System Restore to confirm it is functioning correctly.
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Create a new restore point named TEST.
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| Create a new folder on the
desktop an name it TEST.
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| Now restore to the Test
restore point.
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the restore was successful, and the Test folder on the
desktop will be gone.
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The above test can also be performed in
Safe Mode.
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If this fails, that would indicate there is a corrupt
restore point and all restore points should be purged. |
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How to purge the System Restore Store.
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To do so Turn off System Restore follow these steps:
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Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click
Properties.
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Click the System Restore tab.
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Put a check next to ‘Turn off System Restore on all
drives’, then click OK.
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Click Yes when you receive the prompt to the turn off
System Restore.
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Reboot the system. |
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Turn System Restore back on by following the previous steps
and uncheck ‘Turn off System Restore on all drives’. A new
restore point will be automatically created at that time.
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As suggested earlier it is not necessary to have System
Restore monitor Partitions/drives that Windows is not
installed on.
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Test System Restore as previously described. |
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If System Restore fails at this point,
reinstall System Restore. |
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If all else fails perform a
Repair Install. |
