Problem with System Restore

[sammyc]

I am getting Restoration Incomplete issues when trying to system restore today.

Have tried 3 separate points, & in safe mode etc, no luck. Have tried google, can't see any obvious cause - ie conflict from antivirus - seems to be pointing at corrupt restore points? I'm praying not, as I am trying to restore to before windows scrambled my entire folders' 'view' & 'arrange by' settings for no apparent reason. If I have to rearrange every file manually it will be brink of madness time..

Have never had this issue before and can't link it to any change I've made. Any suggestions welcome

[sammyc]

Bump to add event viewer info, which is as you might expect:

Details
Product: Windows Operating System
ID: 111
Source: SRService
Version: 5.2
Symbolic Name: EVMSG_RESTORE_FAILED
Message: A restoration to "%1" restore point failed. No changes have been made to the system.

Explanation
The System Restore service could not restore the system.

Possible causes include:

The restore point is corrupted.
There is an unknown problem with the system.



Thing is, the first restore operation I did today was successful (just didn't fix the problem). Is it likely a corruption issue would affect some points but not all?

(edit: Windows XP, this is).

[blueball]

Did you disable your antivirus before trying the restore?

[sammyc]

Yes, I turned off avast and spybot (even if I hadn't, shouldn't safe mode get around that?)

[blueball]

Might be worth running error checking on your disk to see if there are any issues (I "think" in XP you open win explorer, right click on drive C, select properties then go to the Tools tab for error checking but I've been using Win7 for so long you might be better googling it)

[sammyc]

^ Thanks, I've run error checking - I had to leave pc unattended towards end & there is no winlogon entry.

Have just re-run in read-only mode & it reports errors with the file system. Would have thought any error should have been corrected within the first thorough check (repair/locate/recover etc)..?

[blueball]

Might be worth getting it to fix the errors - i "think" there is a tick box to allow it to do that?

[Splash]

chkdsk c: /r

That'll run the repair, but will have to be run at boot time.

[sammyc]

I already ran chkdsk (via My Computer, in 'Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors' option, the equivalent of chkdsk r).

Hence why I expected to find no errors in read-only mode.

[Splash]

I already ran chkdsk (via My Computer, in 'Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors' option, the equivalent of chkdsk r).

Hence why I expected to find no errors in read-only mode.

Ah, right. That did a boot-time check, right? If that completed and you still have issues then there's a pretty strong chance that your hard disk is on the skids: backup and replace.

[sammyc]

Right. I have run /f this morning on boot, which has reported file errors fixed.

'Scan and recover bad sectors' option does not seem to imply fix file errors option, in the way /r implies /f - I ran option 2 alone and it did not prompt for a boot-time check.



System restore still not working however.

[blueball]

Think you're looking at a rebuild I'm afraid.

[sammyc]

Though the problem is only one of System restore - surely I'm just looking at turning System restore off & on again, & losing my current restore points (trying to avoid this for reasons as per my first post).

[Splash]

Is E: your system disk? If so you should have had to run it at boot time (as your OS would be running from it, so it couldn't be scanned).

Honestly though: if you've run a chkdsk /r on a disk and it's then throwing errors again after that you're looking very much at a failing disk which will need replacing.

[sammyc]

No, my disk is C, that's a generic google image for speed of explaining the check disk options I tried. Sorry for confusion.

As I say, file errors are reporting fixed now I've re-run.

System restore problem is persisting, is all.

[Dingo]

Do you regularly keep your anti virus up to date as it sounds like you may have been infected which won't be good!!.

Just as a matter of interest are you using Norton antivirus as this has been known to cause some problems with system restore?.

If you have answered yes and no to the two above questions then try this to see if it works


Boot into Safe Mode with command prompt
Log on to the computer with the account that has administration privileges.
Enter the following in to the command prompt:

%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

Press Enter on your keyboard.
Follow the onscreen instructions to restore your computer to an earlier state.