What is happening to my XP restore points?

I have tried to create a number of restore points in XP home sp1. Everytime I create a restore point, it appears to be the only one I have, all others seem to disappear. Can anyone please help.

This question was answered on December 12, 2003. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

---

SYMPTOMS

When you start the System Restore tool and view the "Select a Restore Point" page, some of your restore points may be missing

CAUSE

The deletion of restore points can be caused by any of the following by-design conditions:

ï‚· When you run out of disk space on the system drive (or on any of the available non-system drives), and System Restore stops responding (hangs) and stops monitoring your system.

This causes the system to purge all restore points in an attempt to free up disk space However, you should have already received a warning about running low in disk space prior to this point In this case, when enough disk space is freed, System Restore starts to monitor the system again At this point, it creates an automatic System Checkpoint.

It is important to note that if you have a multiple-partition computer with a drive with little free space on it, this drive could cause System Restore to hang all across the system and delete restore points However, this only happens if you have reached the minimum amount of disk space that is allowed and perform operations to monitored file types such as upgrading, uninstalling or installing programs, moving, deleting or renaming files, and so on If you are very low on disk space, but only perform operations to non-monitored files, this does not cause System Restore to hang

ï‚· When you manually turn System Restore off:

ï‚· If you manually turn System Restore off on the system drive, this causes all restore points to be purged, and you receive the following warning message:

You have chosen to turn off System Restore If you continue, all existing restore points will be deleted, and you will not be able to track and undo changes to your computer

Do you want to turn off System Restore?

Yes No

ï‚· If you manually turn System Restore off on any non-system drive, all restore points on that specific drive are purged, and you receive the following warning message:

You have chosen to turn off System Restore on this drive If you continue, you will not be able to track or undo harmful changes on this drive.

Do you want to turn off System Restore on this drive?

Yes No

When you turn System Restore back on (on the system drive), it immediately creates a System Checkpoint When you turn System Restore back on (on a non-system drive), it does not immediately create a restore point on that drive, but monitoring resumes immediately on the drive.

About the author

Posted by Susan of Mesa Community College on December 12, 2003

Need Help with this Issue?

We help people with technology! It's what we do.
Contact or Schedule an Appointment with a location for help!