This is a post made by Peanut cracker at the other board Jan 15, 2009

peanut_cracker wrote:

Cannot restore computer to any day that it says was a day it did it...I have tried several different days and also went into last month...I am in the category view and it still will not restore..need help quick before something really bad happens.. ...I am running windows XP..)

If anyone has a solution to this I will be interested in it. I have gotten that message quite a few time. I no longer trust that restore will work. But then there are times it has worked fine. I did some research and mostly what I found was people saying that the restore points could become corrupted. However, it would usually work if I went back far enough. I thought it strange that sometimes the older points would work when the newer ones would not. Has not yet been at a crucial time for me.

Again, if someone knows why this happens I will be interested also.

Fay

Peanut_cracker, were you in an account with Administrator permissions when you tried to restore your system? If not, then retry in an administrator user account-you have to be in a user account with administrator permissions to do this. If you need to restore to an earlier point right now because you are having a problem, then go into safe mode and login to the Administrator account and try it from there. Usually, you will be successful unless your checkpoints have become corrupted.

If you don't have a critical need to restore your system to an earlier checkpoint, then follow these steps (note: this will destroy all restore points you have):

a. Right click My Computer - select Properties, then click on the System Restore tab.

b. Check the box that says "Disable Restore on all drives"

c. Click "Apply" then reboot your PC. (you will be prompted to reboot)

d. After the system fully reboots, go back to the System Restore tab again and uncheck the "Disable Restore on all drives" box. A new checkpoint should be created by the System Restore utililty at this time.

e. Reboot once more.

f. Go to Start > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore and choose "Create a Restore Point"

g. Name the restore point whatever you wish (Date and time will be automatically added)

h. After the restore point has been created (assuming without error), go back to Start> Accessories>System Tools> System Restore and choose "Restore my computer to an earlier date and time". Select the restore point the system created or the one you created, and click Next to restore to that checkpoint.

If all goes well, you should receive a message that the system has been successfully restored.

If the above restore points are not created, or if created and cannot be restored to from Normal Mode, you may need to

REINSTALL SYSTEM RESTORE:

1. First ensure that all hidden files and folders are displayed (in Windows Explorer, click Tools > Folder Options > View tab, and click the option button that says "Show hidden files and folders." Uncheck "Hide protected operating system files." Uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types"). Click ok.

2. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the Windows folder (by default, C:\Windows). Click the Inf folder.

3. Scroll down to locate the sr.inf file. Right click it and select Install (you might be asked to insert the XP installation CD or point to the i386 installation folder on the hard disk).

4. After you get an indication that the install is complete, repeat steps f. – h. above and see if System Restore is working properly now.

Note: If you are having problems and If system restore doesn't work, you always have the option of restoring the system to the last known good configuration. To do that:

1. Start (or restart) the computer and then press the F8 key when Windows begins to start. The Windows Advanced Options menu appears.

2. Use the ARROW keys to select Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked), and then press ENTER.

3. If a boot menu appears, use the ARROW keys to select Microsoft Windows XP, and then press ENTER. Windows XP restores the computer to the most recent restore point.