XP system restore - cannot restore, so now what?

Right. My point was that if you remove some of the older system restore
points, you ARE also also removing some of the capability to get back some
of the other monitored files to the prior state, when using System Restore
to go back in time.

Of course, the ONLY sure way to get everything back is to use a partition
backup routine (like True Image), and restore the backup image or partition.

Unknown wrote:
No restore point contains everything. There are many files that are not
saved. If you had 20 restore points you still cannot
restore a system 100%. Use a backup system for that, such as an external
HD.




"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Unknown wrote:
"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Unknown wrote:
"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
OK, good to know. I presume you deleted those other restore
points
manually by getting to them in Windows Explorer (once you got past
the
Access Denied crap and straightened that out).
I deleted them by using disk cleanup.


However, I bet what happened was you were able to restore your
system,
but probably some of the other changes in system files (if
any)(monitored
previously, and kept track of by the earlier restore points), weren't
restored to that prior state.
That's impossible since I used the latest restore point. Why, on some
files would I want to go further back?? Am I misunderstanding
something?

I'm still trying to tease out the belief that System Restore seems on
the one hand to be incrementally based, suggesting that it needs the
previous
restore point data (in each of the previous subfolders) for complete
success for a restore operation, with the belief that on the other
hand,
maybe it does NOT need those other (prior) restore points and whatever
information is contatined there. OK, maybe this is the explanation
below:

I think each time you create a Restore Point it is:
1) saving the complete registry as of that point in time (just like
ERUNT), and
2) saving other program and system changes (not in the registry) made
since the last saved restore point, in a separate set of files. This
would be the incremental logging part I was talking about.

That being said, however, implies that if one deleted the previous
restore
points, one could not get all the monitored program and system files
back to their previous state.

That is true. In other words, if the last restore point stored something
that was already bad there is no way to go back further in time.

No, but it is more than that. The last restore point didn't have to
store something that was bad - it's just that it (that one restore point)
doesn't contain everything.

To be 100% successful, the latest restore point
must have good/correct data. This is precisely why I allow the maximum
amount of space for restore points. Almost four months worth.


Unknown wrote:
I did have an occasion to use System Restore after deleting all but
the latest Restore Point and it was successful.

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Correction to the below (added just below):

Bill in Co. wrote:
That would be my understanding.
(UNLESS you say turned System Restore off, and then back on again,
which starts afresh - but that is very different from what you're
saying).

In retrospect, I think System Restore has to be a bit more robust
than
this, meaning that if one did manually delete some of the previous
restore
points as you said, it might be able to at least recover and reboot
using
the last saved registry (if you chose to do so), BUT it may not be
able to restore the system completely to the previous point in
time.

So I'm hypothesizing that System Restore basically saves a couple
of
things he
1) the current (and full) registry and its associated files (like
ERUNT
does), AND
2) a logging of other prior system changes (and what other
monitored
files
were changed), and it is this which would be lost, if one deleted
some
of the previous restore points. It must work something like
this,
because
as we know, the oldest restore points eventually get deleted by the
system
to make room for new ones, since the total space reserved for them
is fixed.

end note

If you actually look at some of the restore files in the System
Volume
Folder (in each RPnnn subdirectory), you will notice a bunch of
ini
(and some other) files in addition to the registry files (like the
SAM
stuff, etc, which are in the snapshot subfolder).

And the net folder content varies considerably in both size and
number
of files, between the different RPnnn restore point subfolders.

Unknown wrote:
Are you saying if I do a disk cleanup and elect to delete all
restore points
except the latest that the latest restore point is rendered
useless
after disk cleanup finishes???

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
OK, so let's see if I understand this better now:

If, and *only if*, one purges all the previous restore points
(as
in
turning it off and then back on again), and then one creates a
new restore
point, that is the ONLY time it will be a complete restore point
which does not depend on any previous ones.

(although actually that's not exactly true, because as soon as
one turns
System Restore off and then back on again, a restore point will
be created right then - but you know what I mean)

OR, to put it another way: if someone has two or more restore
points on
their system, they ARE always dependent on each other like a
chain
link (right down to the earliest restore point), and if any of
them were
somehow deleted, System Restore would be rendered useless.

I think that's the way it is, but I'm not positive.

R. McCarty wrote:
I didn't phrase the answer very clearly. What I meant was if he
purged all
points and then either the daily timer or change detector
created a "Single"
point then that would have a higher reliability than points
that
extend over
several days. Regardless a 1-day roll back is always going to
have a higher
chance of success than if you try and take the machine back to
a
earlier date because of the chained points dependency.

Sometimes I have the concept, but don't explain it very well.

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
But at what point does System Restore NOT have to depend on
previous restore points?

It sounds like you're saying here that if he now creates a new
one,
it doesn't rely on the previous ones. But yet in other
cases,
it's incremental.


R. McCarty wrote:
The way you describe it, the most recent Restore point would
have the highest reliability since it alone is required to
roll-back the system
state. To me the reliability decreases with each point ( or
day ) back in time you try to restore to.

System Restore is more of a remedy for the "Oh Damn" type of
change where something is done and the change is immediately
seen
as unwanted. I've seen SR move a system back by months, but
it's
not something you'd want to depend on. System Imaging is a
much better approach to restoring a system to a previous
setup.

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Jul 2008 07:46:45 -0400, "R. McCarty"
wrote:

It works much like an incremental backup. If you want to
Restore
to Monday and it is Friday - all the interim points must be
valid.
Once the chain is broken, no restores past the unusable
point
will be possible.

I'd not known this.

If I *create* a restore point (versus the restore points XP
automatically creates), will that created restore point be
full (and
thus usable pretty much no matter what), or will that also
be
incremental?

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Right. My point was that if you remove some of the older system restore
points, you ARE also also removing some of the capability to get back some
of the other monitored files to the prior state, when using System Restore
to go back in time.

If that's the case, the latest restore point is no good anyway.


Of course, the ONLY sure way to get everything back is to use a partition
backup routine (like True Image), and restore the backup image or
partition.

Unknown wrote:
No restore point contains everything. There are many files that are not
saved. If you had 20 restore points you still cannot
restore a system 100%. Use a backup system for that, such as an external
HD.




"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Unknown wrote:
"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Unknown wrote:
"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
OK, good to know. I presume you deleted those other restore
points
manually by getting to them in Windows Explorer (once you got past
the
Access Denied crap and straightened that out).
I deleted them by using disk cleanup.


However, I bet what happened was you were able to restore your
system,
but probably some of the other changes in system files (if
any)(monitored
previously, and kept track of by the earlier restore points),
weren't
restored to that prior state.
That's impossible since I used the latest restore point. Why, on some
files would I want to go further back?? Am I misunderstanding
something?

I'm still trying to tease out the belief that System Restore seems on
the one hand to be incrementally based, suggesting that it needs the
previous
restore point data (in each of the previous subfolders) for complete
success for a restore operation, with the belief that on the other
hand,
maybe it does NOT need those other (prior) restore points and whatever
information is contatined there. OK, maybe this is the explanation
below:

I think each time you create a Restore Point it is:
1) saving the complete registry as of that point in time (just like
ERUNT), and
2) saving other program and system changes (not in the registry) made
since the last saved restore point, in a separate set of files. This
would be the incremental logging part I was talking about.

That being said, however, implies that if one deleted the previous
restore
points, one could not get all the monitored program and system files
back to their previous state.

That is true. In other words, if the last restore point stored
something
that was already bad there is no way to go back further in time.

No, but it is more than that. The last restore point didn't have to
store something that was bad - it's just that it (that one restore
point)
doesn't contain everything.

To be 100% successful, the latest restore point
must have good/correct data. This is precisely why I allow the maximum
amount of space for restore points. Almost four months worth.


Unknown wrote:
I did have an occasion to use System Restore after deleting all but
the latest Restore Point and it was successful.

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Correction to the below (added just below):

Bill in Co. wrote:
That would be my understanding.
(UNLESS you say turned System Restore off, and then back on
again,
which starts afresh - but that is very different from what you're
saying).

In retrospect, I think System Restore has to be a bit more robust
than
this, meaning that if one did manually delete some of the previous
restore
points as you said, it might be able to at least recover and
reboot
using
the last saved registry (if you chose to do so), BUT it may not be
able to restore the system completely to the previous point in
time.

So I'm hypothesizing that System Restore basically saves a couple
of
things he
1) the current (and full) registry and its associated files (like
ERUNT
does), AND
2) a logging of other prior system changes (and what other
monitored
files
were changed), and it is this which would be lost, if one deleted
some
of the previous restore points. It must work something like
this,
because
as we know, the oldest restore points eventually get deleted by
the
system
to make room for new ones, since the total space reserved for them
is fixed.

end note

If you actually look at some of the restore files in the System
Volume
Folder (in each RPnnn subdirectory), you will notice a bunch of
ini
(and some other) files in addition to the registry files (like
the SAM
stuff, etc, which are in the snapshot subfolder).

And the net folder content varies considerably in both size and
number
of files, between the different RPnnn restore point subfolders.

Unknown wrote:
Are you saying if I do a disk cleanup and elect to delete all
restore points
except the latest that the latest restore point is rendered
useless
after disk cleanup finishes???

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
OK, so let's see if I understand this better now:

If, and *only if*, one purges all the previous restore points
(as
in
turning it off and then back on again), and then one creates a
new restore
point, that is the ONLY time it will be a complete restore
point
which does not depend on any previous ones.

(although actually that's not exactly true, because as soon as
one turns
System Restore off and then back on again, a restore point will
be created right then - but you know what I mean)

OR, to put it another way: if someone has two or more restore
points on
their system, they ARE always dependent on each other like a
chain
link (right down to the earliest restore point), and if any of
them were
somehow deleted, System Restore would be rendered useless.

I think that's the way it is, but I'm not positive.

R. McCarty wrote:
I didn't phrase the answer very clearly. What I meant was if
he
purged all
points and then either the daily timer or change detector
created a "Single"
point then that would have a higher reliability than points
that
extend over
several days. Regardless a 1-day roll back is always going to
have a higher
chance of success than if you try and take the machine back to
a
earlier date because of the chained points dependency.

Sometimes I have the concept, but don't explain it very well.

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
But at what point does System Restore NOT have to depend on
previous restore points?

It sounds like you're saying here that if he now creates a
new
one,
it doesn't rely on the previous ones. But yet in other
cases,
it's incremental.


R. McCarty wrote:
The way you describe it, the most recent Restore point would
have the highest reliability since it alone is required to
roll-back the system
state. To me the reliability decreases with each point ( or
day ) back in time you try to restore to.

System Restore is more of a remedy for the "Oh Damn" type of
change where something is done and the change is immediately
seen
as unwanted. I've seen SR move a system back by months, but
it's
not something you'd want to depend on. System Imaging is a
much better approach to restoring a system to a previous
setup.

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Jul 2008 07:46:45 -0400, "R. McCarty"
wrote:

It works much like an incremental backup. If you want to
Restore
to Monday and it is Friday - all the interim points must
be
valid.
Once the chain is broken, no restores past the unusable
point
will be possible.

I'd not known this.

If I *create* a restore point (versus the restore points XP
automatically creates), will that created restore point be
full (and
thus usable pretty much no matter what), or will that also
be
incremental?

Unknown wrote:
"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Right. My point was that if you remove some of the older system restore
points, you ARE also also removing some of the capability to get back
some
of the other monitored files to the prior state, when using System
Restore
to go back in time.

If that's the case, the latest restore point is no good anyway.

Well, not exactly. I expect that one can at least use the latest restore
point to at least get their system back, based just on the registry restore
(and its associated files) portion. True, the computer may not have ALL of
the other monitored files that were being monitored and not restored, but at
least the system is back again. And as you have already pointed out,
you've successfully done that. So it appears that just having the last
restore point can work, as you have pointed out. I haven't tried that
experiment yet. :-)


Of course, the ONLY sure way to get everything back is to use a partition
backup routine (like True Image), and restore the backup image or
partition.

Unknown wrote:
No restore point contains everything. There are many files that are not
saved. If you had 20 restore points you still cannot
restore a system 100%. Use a backup system for that, such as an external
HD.



"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Unknown wrote:
"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Unknown wrote:
"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
OK, good to know. I presume you deleted those other restore
points
manually by getting to them in Windows Explorer (once you got past
the Access Denied crap and straightened that out).
I deleted them by using disk cleanup.


However, I bet what happened was you were able to restore your
system, but probably some of the other changes in system files (if
any) (monitored
previously, and kept track of by the earlier restore points),
weren't restored to that prior state.
That's impossible since I used the latest restore point. Why, on
some
files would I want to go further back?? Am I misunderstanding
something?

I'm still trying to tease out the belief that System Restore seems on
the one hand to be incrementally based, suggesting that it needs the
previous
restore point data (in each of the previous subfolders) for complete
success for a restore operation, with the belief that on the other
hand,
maybe it does NOT need those other (prior) restore points and
whatever
information is contatined there. OK, maybe this is the explanation
below:

I think each time you create a Restore Point it is:
1) saving the complete registry as of that point in time (just like
ERUNT), and
2) saving other program and system changes (not in the registry) made
since the last saved restore point, in a separate set of files.
This
would be the incremental logging part I was talking about.

That being said, however, implies that if one deleted the previous
restore
points, one could not get all the monitored program and system files
back to their previous state.

That is true. In other words, if the last restore point stored
something
that was already bad there is no way to go back further in time.

No, but it is more than that. The last restore point didn't have to
store something that was bad - it's just that it (that one restore
point) doesn't contain everything.

To be 100% successful, the latest restore point
must have good/correct data. This is precisely why I allow the
maximum
amount of space for restore points. Almost four months worth.


Unknown wrote:
I did have an occasion to use System Restore after deleting all
but
the latest Restore Point and it was successful.

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Correction to the below (added just below):

Bill in Co. wrote:
That would be my understanding.
(UNLESS you say turned System Restore off, and then back on
again,
which starts afresh - but that is very different from what
you're
saying).

In retrospect, I think System Restore has to be a bit more robust
than
this, meaning that if one did manually delete some of the
previous
restore
points as you said, it might be able to at least recover and
reboot
using
the last saved registry (if you chose to do so), BUT it may not
be
able to restore the system completely to the previous point in
time.

So I'm hypothesizing that System Restore basically saves a couple
of things he
1) the current (and full) registry and its associated files (like
ERUNT does), AND
2) a logging of other prior system changes (and what other
monitored files
were changed), and it is this which would be lost, if one deleted
some
of the previous restore points. It must work something like
this, because
as we know, the oldest restore points eventually get deleted by
the system
to make room for new ones, since the total space reserved for
them
is fixed.

end note

If you actually look at some of the restore files in the System
Volume
Folder (in each RPnnn subdirectory), you will notice a bunch of
ini (and some other) files in addition to the registry files
(like
the SAM stuff, etc, which are in the snapshot subfolder).

And the net folder content varies considerably in both size and
number
of files, between the different RPnnn restore point subfolders.

Unknown wrote:
Are you saying if I do a disk cleanup and elect to delete all
restore points
except the latest that the latest restore point is rendered
useless after disk cleanup finishes???

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
OK, so let's see if I understand this better now:

If, and *only if*, one purges all the previous restore points
(as in
turning it off and then back on again), and then one creates a
new restore
point, that is the ONLY time it will be a complete restore
point which does not depend on any previous ones.

(although actually that's not exactly true, because as soon as
one turns
System Restore off and then back on again, a restore point
will
be created right then - but you know what I mean)

OR, to put it another way: if someone has two or more
restore
points on
their system, they ARE always dependent on each other like a
chain link (right down to the earliest restore point), and if
any of
them were
somehow deleted, System Restore would be rendered useless.

I think that's the way it is, but I'm not positive.

R. McCarty wrote:
I didn't phrase the answer very clearly. What I meant was if
he purged all
points and then either the daily timer or change detector
created a "Single"
point then that would have a higher reliability than points
that extend over
several days. Regardless a 1-day roll back is always going to
have a higher
chance of success than if you try and take the machine back
to
a earlier date because of the chained points dependency.

Sometimes I have the concept, but don't explain it very well.

"Bill in Co." wrote in
message
...
But at what point does System Restore NOT have to depend on
previous restore points?

It sounds like you're saying here that if he now creates a
new one,
it doesn't rely on the previous ones. But yet in other
cases, it's incremental.


R. McCarty wrote:
The way you describe it, the most recent Restore point
would
have the highest reliability since it alone is required to
roll-back the system
state. To me the reliability decreases with each point ( or
day ) back in time you try to restore to.

System Restore is more of a remedy for the "Oh Damn" type
of
change where something is done and the change is
immediately
seen
as unwanted. I've seen SR move a system back by months, but
it's
not something you'd want to depend on. System Imaging is a
much better approach to restoring a system to a previous
setup.

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Jul 2008 07:46:45 -0400, "R. McCarty"
wrote:

It works much like an incremental backup. If you want to
Restore
to Monday and it is Friday - all the interim points must
be valid.
Once the chain is broken, no restores past the unusable
point will be possible.

I'd not known this.

If I *create* a restore point (versus the restore points
XP
automatically creates), will that created restore point be
full (and
thus usable pretty much no matter what), or will that also
be incremental?

Hi. R. McCarty -- Hoping you can help. About 6-7 weeks ago, I deleted a bunch
of old stuff trying to free up space. Apparently, I didn't know what I was
deleting and accidentally deleted all of my photos from the last several
years. These were my kids growing up. Being a total loser when it comes to
computers, I JUST figured out today that I could do a system restore to get
stuff back. Problem is, it will only restore up to about three weeks ago and
I need to go back to 6/3/08 and restore. Is it possible to do this? Thanks.
M.H.

"R. McCarty" wrote:

The way you describe it, the most recent Restore point would have
the highest reliability since it alone is required to roll-back the system
state. To me the reliability decreases with each point ( or day ) back
in time you try to restore to.

System Restore is more of a remedy for the "Oh Damn" type of
change where something is done and the change is immediately seen
as unwanted. I've seen SR move a system back by months, but it's
not something you'd want to depend on. System Imaging is a much
better approach to restoring a system to a previous setup.

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Jul 2008 07:46:45 -0400, "R. McCarty"
wrote:

It works much like an incremental backup. If you want to Restore
to Monday and it is Friday - all the interim points must be valid.
Once the chain is broken, no restores past the unusable point will
be possible.

I'd not known this.

If I *create* a restore point (versus the restore points XP
automatically creates), will that created restore point be full (and
thus usable pretty much no matter what), or will that also be
incremental?

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:49:00 -0700, M.H.
wrote:

Hi. R. McCarty -- Hoping you can help. About 6-7 weeks ago, I deleted a bunch
of old stuff trying to free up space. Apparently, I didn't know what I was
deleting and accidentally deleted all of my photos from the last several
years. These were my kids growing up. Being a total loser when it comes to
computers, I JUST figured out today that I could do a system restore to get
stuff back. Problem is, it will only restore up to about three weeks ago and
I need to go back to 6/3/08 and restore. Is it possible to do this? Thanks.
M.H.

"R. McCarty" wrote:

The way you describe it, the most recent Restore point would have
the highest reliability since it alone is required to roll-back the system
state. To me the reliability decreases with each point ( or day ) back
in time you try to restore to.

System Restore is more of a remedy for the "Oh Damn" type of
change where something is done and the change is immediately seen
as unwanted. I've seen SR move a system back by months, but it's
not something you'd want to depend on. System Imaging is a much
better approach to restoring a system to a previous setup.

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Jul 2008 07:46:45 -0400, "R. McCarty"
wrote:

It works much like an incremental backup. If you want to Restore
to Monday and it is Friday - all the interim points must be valid.
Once the chain is broken, no restores past the unusable point will
be possible.

I'd not known this.

If I *create* a restore point (versus the restore points XP
automatically creates), will that created restore point be full (and
thus usable pretty much no matter what), or will that also be
incremental?




To MH - a system restore ONLY restores the registry , anything else
requires *recover* software .

Thanks for responding Jimbo. So where does one get "recover" software?

" wrote:

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:49:00 -0700, M.H.
wrote:

Hi. R. McCarty -- Hoping you can help. About 6-7 weeks ago, I deleted a bunch
of old stuff trying to free up space. Apparently, I didn't know what I was
deleting and accidentally deleted all of my photos from the last several
years. These were my kids growing up. Being a total loser when it comes to
computers, I JUST figured out today that I could do a system restore to get
stuff back. Problem is, it will only restore up to about three weeks ago and
I need to go back to 6/3/08 and restore. Is it possible to do this? Thanks.
M.H.

"R. McCarty" wrote:

The way you describe it, the most recent Restore point would have
the highest reliability since it alone is required to roll-back the system
state. To me the reliability decreases with each point ( or day ) back
in time you try to restore to.

System Restore is more of a remedy for the "Oh Damn" type of
change where something is done and the change is immediately seen
as unwanted. I've seen SR move a system back by months, but it's
not something you'd want to depend on. System Imaging is a much
better approach to restoring a system to a previous setup.

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Jul 2008 07:46:45 -0400, "R. McCarty"
wrote:

It works much like an incremental backup. If you want to Restore
to Monday and it is Friday - all the interim points must be valid.
Once the chain is broken, no restores past the unusable point will
be possible.

I'd not known this.

If I *create* a restore point (versus the restore points XP
automatically creates), will that created restore point be full (and
thus usable pretty much no matter what), or will that also be
incremental?




To MH - a system restore ONLY restores the registry , anything else
requires *recover* software .

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:09:06 -0700, M.H.
wrote:

Thanks for responding Jimbo. So where does one get "recover" software?

" wrote:

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:49:00 -0700, M.H.
wrote:

Hi. R. McCarty -- Hoping you can help. About 6-7 weeks ago, I deleted a bunch
of old stuff trying to free up space. Apparently, I didn't know what I was
deleting and accidentally deleted all of my photos from the last several
years. These were my kids growing up. Being a total loser when it comes to
computers, I JUST figured out today that I could do a system restore to get
stuff back. Problem is, it will only restore up to about three weeks ago and
I need to go back to 6/3/08 and restore. Is it possible to do this? Thanks.
M.H.

"R. McCarty" wrote:

The way you describe it, the most recent Restore point would have
the highest reliability since it alone is required to roll-back the system
state. To me the reliability decreases with each point ( or day ) back
in time you try to restore to.

System Restore is more of a remedy for the "Oh Damn" type of
change where something is done and the change is immediately seen
as unwanted. I've seen SR move a system back by months, but it's
not something you'd want to depend on. System Imaging is a much
better approach to restoring a system to a previous setup.

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Jul 2008 07:46:45 -0400, "R. McCarty"
wrote:

It works much like an incremental backup. If you want to Restore
to Monday and it is Friday - all the interim points must be valid.
Once the chain is broken, no restores past the unusable point will
be possible.

I'd not known this.

If I *create* a restore point (versus the restore points XP
automatically creates), will that created restore point be full (and
thus usable pretty much no matter what), or will that also be
incremental?




To MH - a system restore ONLY restores the registry , anything else
requires *recover* software .


Google - recover software .