System Restore not working

[azfred]

Some time ago I installed a new hard drive. I'm not sure if this is related, but now my System Restore does not work. It does not create restore points and I cannot create restore points manually. In searching around the web I found what I think might be the solution. The suggestion was to re-install with my Windows XP Pro CD the sr.inf files - apparently to recognize the new drive. However, when I try this, it tells me I have a newer version of Windows XP on my computer and I can't do any installations from the CD. This may be because I've installed SP2 and other updates.

Anyone have a way of getting these files another way or some other solution to making my System Restore work again?

azfred

[red_house]

You could try uninstalling SP2, install the files you need and, then, reinstalling SP2. Barring that, you could always Disable System Restore completely and rely on System Backups or Drive Imageing software such as that available from Acronis.

[red_house]

I'm not too sure about this info, but I have been told that regular backups of the registry will achieve the same ends as System Restore. I'm willing to be corrected on this, if wrong.

[Wasim]

i would recommend to switch off system restore all together. instead for backups use something like Powerquests drive image. i use that sometimes and is relatively easy to create and install backups of a drive.

[azfred]

Well, I didn't get any help on this or other forums with my problem. However, I fixed it and thought others might want to know how I did it.

I had three problems: 1) My System Restore didn't work at all, wouldn't even open. 2) Right-clicking in a folder and choosing Properties did nothing. 3) Search in Windows did not work.

Here's how I solved these problems.

I re-booted using the "Basic Services Only" option. After that the three things above worked fine.

Then, I added one Service at a time, beginning with non-Microsoft services and then moving on to the Microsoft services. Each time I added a service I re-booted and then checked the three issues. This took all day yesterday.

Non of the non-Microsoft services caused a problem.

What finally caused the problem was a service called "IIS Admin" I think this stands for Internet Information Services, but I'm not sure. (I've never understood why Microsoft doesn't have ALL of the acronyms, words, phrases and abbreviations that are used in its system explained - either in Help files or in the Glossary. You'd think this would be a no-brainer).

Anyway, my computer seems to work fine now. This also solved a slowing problem - sometimes when first loading Internet Explorer it took 4-5 minutes!

I'm no "PC Guru" but it seems to me that this process would be useful in solving a lot of problems that people post on this and other Forums. And yet, I have never seen it offered as a process for solution here, in Microsoft Help files or elsewhere. Is this just too obvious to include or what?

By the way. A frequent suggestion was to turn off System Restore and use another drive to backup instead. The problem with this is my drive is 250 GIG and a lot of it is used. To back it up I'd need a pretty big drive and that would be expensive. I have a lot of music and photo files. If I did get an external drive to backup, what would you recommend as a simple solution?