System Restore Failure

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I am having an intermittent problem with System Restore running on Windows XP. When I choose a restore point, and then ask it to restore my system to that certain point in time, I sometimes get the following message: “Your System Cannot Be Restored”. Does anyone know why this happens, and what I can do to fix it? Please advise. Thank you!

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The difference between “restore point” and “backup” is that “restore point” is a snapshot of Windows settings and files at the certain point of time; backup is a copy of all files (that you choose to back up). If you want to restore settings that you had before, or uninstall files that you added after restore point was created, you can do it – nothing is missing. But if you delete some files or uninstalled programs and want to restore them – it is impossible: they are gone. That’s why it is better to create backup instead of restore point if there is possibility that your files can be deleted. Also: it is a good practice to backup My Documents, say, once a week. Explore Backup utility that comes with Windows.

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Just for fun, laughs, tears or whatever, you ought to read Woody’s Windows XP newsletter #2.05 on the subject of backup!

Al

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I’m not confused between the System Restore function and the backup function in Windows XP. The problem that I am having is that sometimes my computer goes “haywire” and I want to restore it to an earlier point with the earlier settings. Sometimes, I get a message that Windows failed to restore back to the requested point. If you have any suggestions, please advise. Thanks!

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Al, thanks for the tip. I do get all of Woody’s Windows XP newsletters, and they are great. Very useful. Thanks for the suggestion!

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I tried on several occasions to use system restore. I’ve never had it work for me. Worst case was once after trying it my system locked up during boot up. I kept rebooting in safe mode and trying to it to work with no luck. Funny thing is in all 3 of the XP books I bought ( yes I have Woodys too) all said system retore works great! Yikes…….

Tom

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Huh, I have successfully used System Restore more than a few times to roll back some, um, bad decisions. This with it turned off on all but my system drive. I believe much of it depends on what you are trying to “undo” or “restore.”

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Thats why I said yikes! :> I figured all the books can’t be wrong, it has to be something I did. I did learn one lesson form my bad habit of discovering new settings in XP and messing with them at 3 am when I could barely keep my eyes open. :> I know better and at my age should have aquired some wisdom. All that I can think of is don’t mess with things when your tired or sick or had a beer or two. It will always come back and bite ya……. So talking about messing with settings, how would one go about setting system restore to only access the system drive? I’m a download junkie and am always loading new programs and trying them out. I know that leads to more then one crash. At least with XP I’ve only really toasted my computer a couple of time as opposed to win9x. It is very stable and I like it a lot.

Tom

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Right click My Computer (you did put it back on the desktoop didn’t you?). One of the tabs that come up is system restore. Take a look its easy to change settings for drives other than the system drive.

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Thanks,
Actully no I didn’t put it on the desktop. I prefer to keep it and most short cuts in the XP start menu. I hated using the Start Menu in Win9x but really like the things I can do with XP’s. In Win 9x my desktop was wall to wall icons. Thank you for the info. Lets see I’m, wide awake, healthy and have not been drinking so it looks like the perfact time to go play with settings. Even though It’s never worked for me I’ll tag System restore first in case I make a few wrong choices. Thanks again!

Tom

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