System Restore Keeping Only One Restore Point

Hey Daave.... good points.

I do indeed have a 40 gig hard drive (the internal C: drive). That main
internal hard disk has 15 gigs used up leaving 25 gigs of free space. The
only external device I'd call a "drive" is an external DVD Burner which is
recognized as the F: drive. I also have an internal D: drive, which is a
CDROM device (empty most of the time), and an internal E: drive which is a
CD burning device. The only external item is the F:drive, and it basically
does nothing until I utilize it to make a backup of something. I checked
the System Restore tab, and the only drive being monitored by SR is drive C:

When the SRService report came up, I assumed it was complaining that not
enough "allocated space" was available... space "allocated for SR storage".
I don't think it was referring to the overall available space on the hard
drive. Anyway, I'm gonna hit the ole phart sack for tonight, and over the
next few days we'll see if more restore points are created, now that I've
allocated a full 12% of the total disk space to System Restore.

The biggest mystery to me still is.... why are there so many .RDB files
appearing on those two huge SR folders, and what are .RDB files? I assume
that as the space allocated to SR gets filled to the brim, SR will
eventually start dropping off the earliest restore points... eventually
deleting these huge ones. It will be interesting to see if any more of
these gigantic SR folders get created in the next few days. I'll keep you
all informed, and I really appreciate the honest efforts of all of you in
getting to the bottom of this with me.

Have a great night!

Dan

"Daave" wrote in message
...
"Danno" wrote in message
news:x1%Zj.163103$Cj7.93855@pd7urf2no...

Event Type: Information
Event Source: SRService
Event Category: None
Event ID: 107
Date: 5/22/2008
Time: 3:37:36 AM
User: N/A
Computer: DANS-COMPUTER
Description:
The System Restore service has been suspended because there is not enough
disk space available on the drive
\\?\Volume{95e0434a-0fff-11dd-8ae4-806d6172696f}\. System Restore will
automatically resume service once at least 200 MB of free disk space is
available on the system drive.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Something's not adding up!

In another post, you said you had 25 GB of free space on your hard drive!
So why does System Restore think you have less than 1 GB?!

Also, have a look at this page:

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/drivedisable.html

How many available drives do you have? (Look in the System Restore tab of
System Properties.) Gerry asked earlier if there was another drive you
were using SR (inadvertently) on. Let's be clear on that issue!

If nothing else works, perhaps you should reinstall System Resto

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/reinstall.html

Danno wrote:
All 4 restore points that I've discussed here are all from the same
date....
yesterday. I have not installed anything large at all in the recent past.
So those huge restore points are not old ones, they are from only
yesterday.

THAT is really, really, weird!
But at any rate, those large restore points sound quite erroneous, so maybe
it's time to start afresh, ya think? (see below).

I can manually move them I suppose, but do I dare? Do you mean place them
on the desktop for now, or something like that? Do I dare... or should I
just let SR take care of them in due course?

Not in due course, do it now. Use System Restore to turn them off, and
after it finishes, turn it back on again (as I mentioned in an earlier
post). Then you will have CLEAN restore points from that point forward
(unless there is still something else wrong with your system). What do you
have to lose? (You don't need those restore points as it is now, right?
Right).

The only exception I can think of to that might be if the FIRST one (the
earliest time stamp) of those four WAS normal in size, in which case you
could (possibly) consider restoring back to that one, (under the assumption
that something happened to your system after that first restore point (IF it
is a normal size restore point).

But this also sounds like a long shot (for trying to "fix" whatever
happened).



"Daave" wrote in message
...
"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Daave wrote:
"Danno" wrote in message
news:jF0_j.291776$pM4.35271@pd7urf1no...
Hi Bill in Co.,

Yeah, those two huge SR files are ginormous. I'm really interested in
two things he

First, what in hell would cause SR to store files that big?

I believe it happens whenever a new service pack is installed.

OR some huge program, possibly like Office, for example.

Actually, in retrospect, perhaps it's not out of fhe question, after
installs of very large programs. So maybe he did that (installed
either a SP or Office, or whatever)

It's not out of the question whatsoever; I'm sure that's what happened.

However, one thing *does* puzzle me, from the original post:

I've turned off System Restore, re-booted... then turned on
System Restore and re-booted again. But it's still the same.

Shouldn't this have taken care of the (presumably older) huge restore
points?

And Danno, regarding your two largest restore points (627 MB and 567 MB),
what are their dates? Can you manually move them to another location (in
the event you don't want to delete them right away)?

Danno

Your rdb files relate to Zone Alarm

Specifically the file IAMDB.RDB. It's ZoneAlarm's database of logged
intrusion information. If ZoneAlarm is giving you trouble (or causing
other programs to not work) the file may be corrupt and you should be
able to shut ZoneAlarm down then go to C:\Windows\Internet Logs\ and
delete the IAMDB.RDB and, if it exists, BACKUP.RDB, and then restart
your computer. A non-corrupt version of IAMDB.RDB will be automatically
created.
Source: http://filext.com/file-extension/rdb

You should not manually tinker with any entries in the System Volume
Information folder.

I vaguely remember reading about this problem in the past. I will do
some research and see if I can find what was the solution. It's
obviously not a problem for now given that you have turned Zone Alarm
off.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Danno wrote:
All 4 restore points that I've discussed here are all from the same
date.... yesterday. I have not installed anything large at all in
the recent past. So those huge restore points are not old ones, they
are from only yesterday.
I can manually move them I suppose, but do I dare? Do you mean place
them on the desktop for now, or something like that? Do I dare... or
should I just let SR take care of them in due course?



"Daave" wrote in message
...
"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Daave wrote:
"Danno" wrote in message
news:jF0_j.291776$pM4.35271@pd7urf1no...
Hi Bill in Co.,

Yeah, those two huge SR files are ginormous. I'm really
interested in two things he

First, what in hell would cause SR to store files that big?

I believe it happens whenever a new service pack is installed.

OR some huge program, possibly like Office, for example.

Actually, in retrospect, perhaps it's not out of fhe question, after
installs of very large programs. So maybe he did that (installed
either a SP or Office, or whatever)

It's not out of the question whatsoever; I'm sure that's what
happened. However, one thing *does* puzzle me, from the original
post:

I've turned off System Restore, re-booted... then turned on
System Restore and re-booted again. But it's still the same.

Shouldn't this have taken care of the (presumably older) huge restore
points?

And Danno, regarding your two largest restore points (627 MB and 567
MB), what are their dates? Can you manually move them to another
location (in the event you don't want to delete them right away)?

Danno

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.
Source: http://bertk.mvps.org/html/srfail.html

It would seem Zone Alarm has not rectified the bug in later versions.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Danno wrote:
All 4 restore points that I've discussed here are all from the same
date.... yesterday. I have not installed anything large at all in
the recent past. So those huge restore points are not old ones, they
are from only yesterday.
I can manually move them I suppose, but do I dare? Do you mean place
them on the desktop for now, or something like that? Do I dare... or
should I just let SR take care of them in due course?



"Daave" wrote in message
...
"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Daave wrote:
"Danno" wrote in message
news:jF0_j.291776$pM4.35271@pd7urf1no...
Hi Bill in Co.,

Yeah, those two huge SR files are ginormous. I'm really
interested in two things he

First, what in hell would cause SR to store files that big?

I believe it happens whenever a new service pack is installed.

OR some huge program, possibly like Office, for example.

Actually, in retrospect, perhaps it's not out of fhe question, after
installs of very large programs. So maybe he did that (installed
either a SP or Office, or whatever)

It's not out of the question whatsoever; I'm sure that's what
happened. However, one thing *does* puzzle me, from the original
post:

I've turned off System Restore, re-booted... then turned on
System Restore and re-booted again. But it's still the same.

Shouldn't this have taken care of the (presumably older) huge restore
points?

And Danno, regarding your two largest restore points (627 MB and 567
MB), what are their dates? Can you manually move them to another
location (in the event you don't want to delete them right away)?

On Sun, 25 May 2008 06:07:38 GMT, Danno wrote:

snip for brevity

...It will be interesting to see if any more of these gigantic
SR folders get created in the next few days.

You will Danno, you will! You really should be educating yourself about ZA
and other 3rd party (so-called) firewalll applications.
--
Security is a process not a product.
(Bruce Schneier)

"Danno" wrote in message
newsL6_j.164186$Cj7.44349@pd7urf2no...
"Daave" wrote in message
...
"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Daave wrote:
"Danno" wrote in message
news:jF0_j.291776$pM4.35271@pd7urf1no...
Hi Bill in Co.,

Yeah, those two huge SR files are ginormous. I'm really
interested in
two things he

First, what in hell would cause SR to store files that big?

I believe it happens whenever a new service pack is installed.

OR some huge program, possibly like Office, for example.

Actually, in retrospect, perhaps it's not out of fhe question, after
installs of very large programs. So maybe he did that (installed
either a SP or Office, or whatever)

It's not out of the question whatsoever; I'm sure that's what
happened.

However, one thing *does* puzzle me, from the original post:

I've turned off System Restore, re-booted... then turned on
System Restore and re-booted again. But it's still the same.

Shouldn't this have taken care of the (presumably older) huge restore
points?

And Danno, regarding your two largest restore points (627 MB and 567
MB), what are their dates? Can you manually move them to another
location (in the event you don't want to delete them right away)?

All 4 restore points that I've discussed here are all from the same
date.... yesterday. I have not installed anything large at all in the
recent past. So those huge restore points are not old ones, they are
from only yesterday.

I can manually move them I suppose, but do I dare? Do you mean place
them on the desktop for now, or something like that? Do I dare... or
should I just let SR take care of them in due course?

In retrospect, I agree with Gerry that this would not be a good idea. I
suppose you *could* do something like this provided you image your hard
drive first. Then if you bork your system, you could just restore the
image. But first, you should definitely uninstall Zone Alarm to see if
that's the culprit. If you still have the huge points, I would say it's
time to reinstall System Restore. Again, for your reference:

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/reinstall.html

You know, even if you don't manually delete the files (and again, I
agree with Gerry that you shouldn't), you *still* should check into
imaging your hard drive with a program such as Acronis True Image. It's
easiest to save the image to an external hard drive, but CDs/DVDs work,
too.

That was a wee bit too condescending for my liking.

"Educating myself" is exactly what I'm doing with this long drawn out,
patient exercise.

If I had a thousand years to live, I still wouldn't have enough time to
"educate myself" about all the things that could go wrong with a computer.
Especially problems caused by software I paid hard earned money for. I
declare my innocence, not my ignorance.


"Kayman" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 May 2008 06:07:38 GMT, Danno wrote:

snip for brevity

...It will be interesting to see if any more of these gigantic
SR folders get created in the next few days.

You will Danno, you will! You really should be educating yourself about ZA
and other 3rd party (so-called) firewalll applications.
--
Security is a process not a product.
(Bruce Schneier)

Good morning!

This morning there were no new SR points, although I shouldn't necessarily
expect one. So I've created a new SR point and have turned off SR, and
re-started it. So now there is only the one new SR point. ZoneAlarm is
still turned off and will remain turned off for at least two weeks. I have
AVG on my computer but have kept it inactive while ZoneAlarm was active. I
can't see any harm in using AVG for the next two weeks (and probably
beyond).

For you fine folks who have so kindly contributed your thoughts in this
thread, it might be several days before I have the evidence I need that
things are back to normal. Or maybe they won't be back to normal and I
might have to resort to further measures like re-installing System Restore
as detailed by Daave.

But out of respect for your help, I'll keep posting here (for those who are
still interested), as time goes by. We're still in the investigatory stage
here. If Zone Alarm is truly the culprit, I'd like to be able to provide
the evidence so others won't have to deal with this.

Thanks very much for your determination and interest. I'm very impressed
with you guys.

Dan

"Danno" wrote in message
news:ayd_j.162924$rd2.119094@pd7urf3no...
That was a wee bit too condescending for my liking.

"Educating myself" is exactly what I'm doing with this long drawn out,
patient exercise.

If I had a thousand years to live, I still wouldn't have enough time to
"educate myself" about all the things that could go wrong with a computer.
Especially problems caused by software I paid hard earned money for. I
declare my innocence, not my ignorance.


"Kayman" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 May 2008 06:07:38 GMT, Danno wrote:

snip for brevity

...It will be interesting to see if any more of these gigantic
SR folders get created in the next few days.

You will Danno, you will! You really should be educating yourself about
ZA
and other 3rd party (so-called) firewalll applications.
--
Security is a process not a product.
(Bruce Schneier)

Kayman wrote:
On Sat, 24 May 2008 09:14:09 -0300, Vincent wrote:

Kayman wrote:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tec...l/default.aspx
"Outbound protection is security theater¡Xit¡¦s a gimmick that only gives the
impression of improving your security without doing anything that actually
does improve your security."
snipped childish over-emotive and misinformed rant

snipped make believe security expert drivel


If you think that my post was meant as a ringing endorsement of third
party firewalls and their marketing hype you misunderstood what I said.
I think that 75% or more of the third party firewalls out there are
nothing more than junk being marketed and sold with rather dubious
claims. If you think that my post was meant to say that the Windows
firewall isn't a good firewall you also misunderstood my view of the
Windows firewall, the Windows firewall does what it was designed to do
very well. Third party software vendors who make claims that the
Windows firewall is insecure are engaging in deceptive marketing, I do
not dispute this and I agree with you that these companies are engaging
in shoddy practices.

On the other hand, would you fail and discredit all anti-virus programs
because viruses or other malware foiled them? Why not? Anti-virus
software programs are foiled and fail every day of the week, why do you
not froth at the mouth and tell users to stop using these programs?

No one ever said that firewalls cannot be foiled, that is not the point,
nothing is fail proof and that includes Microsoft products! What you
and others fail to understand is that outbound filtering can foil "some"
malware and as such it can alert users of potential problems, a firewall
that monitors outbound traffic can be another tool in the fight against
pests, get off your high horse with your claims that firewalls can be
foiled, we all know that and no one disputes this, your argument is
nothing but a red herring! Door locks don't stop all home intrusions,
yet few homeowners would do without them! If you say that firewalls are
0% effective at outbound monitoring you are wrong and you are no
security expert! If you say that egress traffic is a non issue you
truly lack in basic security concepts!

But, as I said earlier, that is not the point, the point is that
customers have asked Microsoft for a method, via the firewall or by
other means, of detecting and controlling egress traffic be it malware
related or not. Not all customers want all of their applications to be
allowed to send data outside, some customers want to control outbound
traffic, they want to know what is sending data outside and that is not
an outrageous demand! It is none of yours, or Microsoft's business to
be telling customers that they don't need to monitor or control egress
traffic, be it malware related or not! If Microsoft doesn't want to
supply such a tool that is fine, customers will look to others for
solutions, stop berating customers just because they make a simple
request for a useful tool to help them with their computing needs!

You or Microsoft and others who rant about firewall hypes have not
supplied any easy useful solutions to the egress filtering request.
Instead, anytime that a Microsoft customer has asked for a way to
control egress traffic what you and Microsoft have done is automatically
froth at the mouth and engage in a tirade about third party firewalls
and the fact that they are not 100% fail safe! No one disputes this and
no one has asked or insisted for a 100% fail proof solution, if they did
they wouldn't run any Microsoft products because not a single Microsoft
product has a 100% mark! Some customers want to control egress traffic
for reasons that are completely unrelated to malware, they have a need
for egress traffic control, what business of yours is it to tell them
that they shouldn't be concerned with egress traffic?

Customers have made a simple request, it isn't for you or Microsoft to
dictate to customers what they should or should not want to do with
their computers. If you cannot supply any useful solutions to that
simple demand STFU and stop telling customers what they should want or
not want. I repeat once again, anyone who claims that people should not
concern themselves with egress traffic and that it should be allowed to
go on unchecked is no security expert!

Vincent

On Sun, 25 May 2008 13:09:26 GMT, Danno wrote:

That was a wee bit too condescending for my liking.

"Educating myself" is exactly what I'm doing with this long drawn out,
patient exercise.

If I had a thousand years to live, I still wouldn't have enough time to
"educate myself" about all the things that could go wrong with a computer.
Especially problems caused by software I paid hard earned money for. I
declare my innocence, not my ignorance.


"Kayman" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 May 2008 06:07:38 GMT, Danno wrote:

snip for brevity

...It will be interesting to see if any more of these gigantic
SR folders get created in the next few days.

You will Danno, you will! You really should be educating yourself about ZA
and other 3rd party (so-called) firewalll applications.
--
Security is a process not a product.
(Bruce Schneier)

Wasn't meant to be! But since you object to 'educate' maybe 'fine-tune' or
'improve' would've been a more suitable choice of word(s); Sorry for
hurting your feelings. And I declare my inability reading (any) posters
emotional stance.

BTW,
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is it such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

"Danno" wrote in message
news:ERd_j.164791$Cj7.160654@pd7urf2no...
Good morning!

This morning there were no new SR points, although I shouldn't
necessarily expect one. So I've created a new SR point and have
turned off SR, and re-started it. So now there is only the one new SR
point. ZoneAlarm is still turned off and will remain turned off for
at least two weeks. I have AVG on my computer but have kept it
inactive while ZoneAlarm was active. I can't see any harm in using
AVG for the next two weeks (and probably beyond).

For you fine folks who have so kindly contributed your thoughts in
this thread, it might be several days before I have the evidence I
need that things are back to normal. Or maybe they won't be back to
normal and I might have to resort to further measures like
re-installing System Restore as detailed by Daave.

But out of respect for your help, I'll keep posting here (for those
who are still interested), as time goes by. We're still in the
investigatory stage here. If Zone Alarm is truly the culprit, I'd
like to be able to provide the evidence so others won't have to deal
with this.

Thanks for your efforts, too, Danno. We look forward to a definitive
cause for future reference!

Kayman wrote:
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

People who forever want to debate the merits of top v bottom posting!


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Putting my oar in G - why not use the ERUNT system ; I use it all
the time and have turned SR off .




On Sun, 25 May 2008 13:09:26 GMT, "Danno" wrote:

That was a wee bit too condescending for my liking.

"Educating myself" is exactly what I'm doing with this long drawn out,
patient exercise.

If I had a thousand years to live, I still wouldn't have enough time to
"educate myself" about all the things that could go wrong with a computer.
Especially problems caused by software I paid hard earned money for. I
declare my innocence, not my ignorance.


"Kayman" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 May 2008 06:07:38 GMT, Danno wrote:

snip for brevity

...It will be interesting to see if any more of these gigantic
SR folders get created in the next few days.

You will Danno, you will! You really should be educating yourself about ZA
and other 3rd party (so-called) firewalll applications.
--
Security is a process not a product.
(Bruce Schneier)

ERUNT and System Restore each (or both) have their own place. Using the
right tool for the right job is the key here.


wrote:
Putting my oar in G - why not use the ERUNT system ; I use it all
the time and have turned SR off .


On Sun, 25 May 2008 13:09:26 GMT, "Danno" wrote:

That was a wee bit too condescending for my liking.

"Educating myself" is exactly what I'm doing with this long drawn out,
patient exercise.

If I had a thousand years to live, I still wouldn't have enough time to
"educate myself" about all the things that could go wrong with a
computer.
Especially problems caused by software I paid hard earned money for. I
declare my innocence, not my ignorance.


"Kayman" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 May 2008 06:07:38 GMT, Danno wrote:

snip for brevity

...It will be interesting to see if any more of these gigantic
SR folders get created in the next few days.

You will Danno, you will! You really should be educating yourself about
ZA
and other 3rd party (so-called) firewalll applications.
--
Security is a process not a product.
(Bruce Schneier)

Or OldTurkey forever saying "what does this have to do with WindowsXP? Do
you see that in the title? It doesn't belong here." LOL.

Gerry wrote:
Kayman wrote:
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

People who forever want to debate the merits of top v bottom posting!


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~