A Windows XP help forum. PCbanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » PCbanter forum » Microsoft Windows XP » General XP issues or comments
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

system restore



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old August 9th 10, 05:23 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
jimgobucks46
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2
Default system restore

i can't get system restore to go back to a previous month...i have only 2
restore points in august and i need to go back to july...i click on the
previus month arrow but nothing happens...any thoughts?
Ads
  #2  
Old August 9th 10, 06:37 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
PA Bear [MS MVP]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,010
Default system restore

You don't have Restore Points going back that far?

Your computer's infected & not fully-patched?


jimgobucks46 wrote:
i can't get system restore to go back to a previous month...i have only 2
restore points in august and i need to go back to july...i click on the
previus month arrow but nothing happens...any thoughts?

  #3  
Old August 9th 10, 06:37 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
PA Bear [MS MVP]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,010
Default system restore

You don't have Restore Points going back that far?

Your computer's infected & not fully-patched?


jimgobucks46 wrote:
i can't get system restore to go back to a previous month...i have only 2
restore points in august and i need to go back to july...i click on the
previus month arrow but nothing happens...any thoughts?

  #4  
Old August 9th 10, 11:24 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default system restore

jimgobucks46 wrote:
i can't get system restore to go back to a previous month...i have only 2
restore points in august and i need to go back to july...i click on the
previus month arrow but nothing happens...any thoughts?


You can assign a limited amount of space, for the "System Volume Information"
folder on your C: drive. Mine is set to the default of 12% of the C: drive.

Perhaps if you'd turned that number down severely, it has limited the
maximum space the restore points can hold ?

Right now, I can click the arrow on the "calendar" of System Restore,
and mine goes back to May.11, 2010.

If I look in the "System Volume Information" folder, I see

System Volume Information
_restore{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}
RP166 May 11, 2010
RP167 May 12, 2010
...
RP232 Aug 8, 2010
drivetable.txt
fifo.log
_driver.cfg
_filelist.cfg

So at least, I have restore point folders which correspond to
what my calendar is doing in the System Restore screen. (The oldest
restore point is thrown away, when a new one needs to be written, and
my 12% of space is used up. If your space allocation setting is very
small, there might only be room for two restore points.)

There are some recipes for gaining access to that folder, here.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=309531

( got link from http://wiki.lunarsoft.net/wiki/Syste...me_Information )

If you have two restore points in August, and today is August 9,
my guess would be, those two points used up all the allocated
space. Moving the slider to some minimum value would have done
that. Like I said above, mine is set to 12% of my C: drive
(for no particular reason, and no, I would not try to restore
to May.11 :-) ). And as a consequence, my calendar has several
months worth, And I only see a couple dates missing from that
collection. Otherwise, I'm averaging about one RP a day.

My average restore point size is about 40MB or so (just holding my
mouse over a few of the RPxxx folders and getting size info).
And a good deal of that (perhaps 75%), is registry files.

If you didn't want to fool around with the permissions on the files
that they made so hard to get to, booting a Linux LiveCD should
give you access to that folder, so you can check dates and folder
info. Ubuntu and Knoppix are examples of LiveCD distros, suitable
for simple maintenance tasks. By default, Knoppix tends to mount
things read-only, which gives some protection against doing
stupid things. You have to know which dialog to enter, in Knoppix,
to change access to the Windows partition to read/write, which
means you explicitly are giving permission to make changes.
Which is a nuisance and a feature, all in one.

Paul
  #5  
Old August 9th 10, 11:24 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default system restore

jimgobucks46 wrote:
i can't get system restore to go back to a previous month...i have only 2
restore points in august and i need to go back to july...i click on the
previus month arrow but nothing happens...any thoughts?


You can assign a limited amount of space, for the "System Volume Information"
folder on your C: drive. Mine is set to the default of 12% of the C: drive.

Perhaps if you'd turned that number down severely, it has limited the
maximum space the restore points can hold ?

Right now, I can click the arrow on the "calendar" of System Restore,
and mine goes back to May.11, 2010.

If I look in the "System Volume Information" folder, I see

System Volume Information
_restore{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}
RP166 May 11, 2010
RP167 May 12, 2010
...
RP232 Aug 8, 2010
drivetable.txt
fifo.log
_driver.cfg
_filelist.cfg

So at least, I have restore point folders which correspond to
what my calendar is doing in the System Restore screen. (The oldest
restore point is thrown away, when a new one needs to be written, and
my 12% of space is used up. If your space allocation setting is very
small, there might only be room for two restore points.)

There are some recipes for gaining access to that folder, here.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=309531

( got link from http://wiki.lunarsoft.net/wiki/Syste...me_Information )

If you have two restore points in August, and today is August 9,
my guess would be, those two points used up all the allocated
space. Moving the slider to some minimum value would have done
that. Like I said above, mine is set to 12% of my C: drive
(for no particular reason, and no, I would not try to restore
to May.11 :-) ). And as a consequence, my calendar has several
months worth, And I only see a couple dates missing from that
collection. Otherwise, I'm averaging about one RP a day.

My average restore point size is about 40MB or so (just holding my
mouse over a few of the RPxxx folders and getting size info).
And a good deal of that (perhaps 75%), is registry files.

If you didn't want to fool around with the permissions on the files
that they made so hard to get to, booting a Linux LiveCD should
give you access to that folder, so you can check dates and folder
info. Ubuntu and Knoppix are examples of LiveCD distros, suitable
for simple maintenance tasks. By default, Knoppix tends to mount
things read-only, which gives some protection against doing
stupid things. You have to know which dialog to enter, in Knoppix,
to change access to the Windows partition to read/write, which
means you explicitly are giving permission to make changes.
Which is a nuisance and a feature, all in one.

Paul
  #6  
Old August 9th 10, 05:29 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Nil[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,170
Default system restore

On 09 Aug 2010, =?Utf-8?B?amltZ29idWNrczQ2?=
wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

i can't get system restore to go back to a previous month...i have
only 2 restore points in august and i need to go back to july...i
click on the previus month arrow but nothing happens...any
thoughts?


Only the dates in bold have a restore point associated with them. If
it's not, and nothing happens, you're just plain out of luck.

If you think you will need more restore points available in the future,
you need to change the settings to dedicate more disk space for them.
  #7  
Old August 9th 10, 05:29 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Nil[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,170
Default system restore

On 09 Aug 2010, =?Utf-8?B?amltZ29idWNrczQ2?=
wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

i can't get system restore to go back to a previous month...i have
only 2 restore points in august and i need to go back to july...i
click on the previus month arrow but nothing happens...any
thoughts?


Only the dates in bold have a restore point associated with them. If
it's not, and nothing happens, you're just plain out of luck.

If you think you will need more restore points available in the future,
you need to change the settings to dedicate more disk space for them.
  #8  
Old August 9th 10, 07:56 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Ken Blake, MVP
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,402
Default system restore

On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 06:24:30 -0400, Paul wrote:

jimgobucks46 wrote:
i can't get system restore to go back to a previous month...i have only 2
restore points in august and i need to go back to july...i click on the
previus month arrow but nothing happens...any thoughts?


You can assign a limited amount of space, for the "System Volume Information"
folder on your C: drive. Mine is set to the default of 12% of the C: drive.

Perhaps if you'd turned that number down severely, it has limited the
maximum space the restore points can hold ?

Right now, I can click the arrow on the "calendar" of System Restore,
and mine goes back to May.11, 2010.



The default is too big for most people. If your restore points go back
to May 11, that's three months, and going back that far is almost
always a poor idea. Going back too far tends to get your registry out
of synch with other files on the drive. So I recommend changing the
amount of disk space you give it to create no more than a week or two
of restore points.


--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup
  #9  
Old August 9th 10, 07:56 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Ken Blake, MVP
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,402
Default system restore

On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 06:24:30 -0400, Paul wrote:

jimgobucks46 wrote:
i can't get system restore to go back to a previous month...i have only 2
restore points in august and i need to go back to july...i click on the
previus month arrow but nothing happens...any thoughts?


You can assign a limited amount of space, for the "System Volume Information"
folder on your C: drive. Mine is set to the default of 12% of the C: drive.

Perhaps if you'd turned that number down severely, it has limited the
maximum space the restore points can hold ?

Right now, I can click the arrow on the "calendar" of System Restore,
and mine goes back to May.11, 2010.



The default is too big for most people. If your restore points go back
to May 11, that's three months, and going back that far is almost
always a poor idea. Going back too far tends to get your registry out
of synch with other files on the drive. So I recommend changing the
amount of disk space you give it to create no more than a week or two
of restore points.


--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off






All times are GMT +1. The time now is 05:33 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 PCbanter.
The comments are property of their posters.