[Help] System Restore

[yarlac]

Three days ago my system restore stopped working. It goes through the normal process but after the reboot it says, "no changes have been made to your system." Immediately before this I downloaded WMP 10 to both my laptop and desktop. Then I noticed that 90% of all my favorites were deleted from IE. I'm not sure if before this or after downloading WMP 10, I did a sync with my desktop, as I back everything up to it. That is when I discovered that 90% of my favorites were missing so I tried to do a restore in both computers and discovered system restore was down in both machines prior to 2.4.06. So it was either something to do with WMP 10, which I have uninstalled, or the problem from one computer went to the other during the sync. The net result of this is system restore is inoperable before 2.4.06 in both machines.

The real p***er is I was about a week into a study of Xylol and acetone's effect on combustion for internal combustion engines. I lost it all......unless I can restore system restore.

During the past few days I have spent 2-3 hours a day to try to figure this out, I found a message board that identified the file address for system restore. So I searched for them and right clicked on one and tried to defrag that particular file, I found five files. I have System Mechanic Pro on both my computers which allows particular file defrag capability, (it was the second time I used it). It appeared to be running fine.....then the file disappeared from the search list.

So what I need is the system restore files to uninstall/re-install System Restore, or re-install over system restore and try to save the restore points which could save me years worth of scientific favorites and many others. I have forgotten the file name for system restore so I cannot look them up on the web.

I could not find any site on the web addressing this problem or system restore problems. If you can direct me to someone that would be very helpful, as my guy is not around, or refer me to a site that handles these type problems with System restore, so I can hunt down the solution.

Thanks,

Ray

Please NOW in Microsoft Windows XP section, use [TAGS] in your topic's title.

See rules.

--Sonic

[TheFlash428]

Well, this behavior sounds weird--i can't imagine it has anything to do with WMP10, but it sounds like it may be a virus or malware at practice.

Sorry, I know this doesn't help much. Also, I am not too familiar with system restore, I am not sure if it actually backs up all files on the disk, as I was under the assumption that it only backed up system files and the registry, so I would be interested to know the answer to that question.

[dougiefresh]

So what I need is the system restore files to uninstall/re-install System Restore, or re-install over system restore and try to save the restore points which could save me years worth of scientific favorites and many others. I have forgotten the file name for system restore so I cannot look them up on the web.

The only suggestion would be System Restore in Add/Remove Programs. This is probably not exactly what you're looking for, but it will help you to re-install System Restore on your computer (definitely less time than reinstalling XP). The only other way of reinstalling the files is to upgrade over your current installation of Windows XP, which will probably take about 1 hour of your time.

EDIT: Stupid me.... I reread the quoted part and it looks like exactly what you requested!! Doh!

Well, this behavior sounds weird--i can't imagine it has anything to do with WMP10, but it sounds like it may be a virus or malware at practice.

I completely agree. Definitely run a virus scan and a malware/spyware/adware scan on your computer. It sounds like something is foo-bar-ing with the files on your computer!

Sorry, I know this doesn't help much. Also, I am not too familiar with system restore, I am not sure if it actually backs up all files on the disk, as I was under the assumption that it only backed up system files and the registry, so I would be interested to know the answer to that question.

I would agree with your statement regarding System Restore, TheFlash428. I've had a problem where files were removed from my system due to user stupidity (yeah, that's me!). I tried using System Restore to bring them back and got only the settings and shortcuts. The program files were still gone. (I don't remember how [or even if] I got them back

Edited February 7, 2006 by dougiefresh

[CptMurphy]

The best way to restore ur lost files is by using some third party program. If you want to "reinstall" system restore there's only one way to do it and you'd lose all your save points. Chances are that the restore point you chose was either corrupted, or lost due to insufficient amound of hard drive space. If you have, for example, 2GB specifically for System Restore, and you continually make restore points, you'd eventually run out of space and the oldest restore point would be deleted.