Why are my Windows system restore points disappearing?

You need to buy a copy of fix-it utilities 10 this creates it's own restore points and will also create system restore points as well. The program is available from: www.avanquest.com & will cost you $39.00. Believe me it's well worth the money.

i ossume there a failureppoint in checking that 'automatic restorationpoint' thats how the previous point destroyed

is there chance to just create restorationpoint without automatic
service on

so you should do ur reastorationpoints all the time like in a week or so for others - many of us might need lot more if they are uninstalling/installing stuff

if u had a restorationpoint from over a year or so and you would restore your your whole settings: wow what a chance it would be..

restoring is desingned to fix programs bugs etc what ever u are feeling when ure going to think and possibly to restorepoint your machine

I only think about this and hope its all nonsense

The reason Windows deletes some of your system restore points is to make room for new ones. These take up a considerable amount of room and the system is just being tidy by keeping on the most recent ones that are created.

There are also many utilities out there that while cleaning your hard disk, will without your knowledge, wipe most of those restore points. Use these utilities with caution. Some will advise you of this and offer a choice, while others may not.

One of the things that caused the restore points to dissapear on my machines ( which were running XP & Vista) was trying to view or access password protected files without the password on a backup disk. It gave no warning. Just all the restore points were gone. The protected files could not be accessed or deleted. I can view or access files on the disk just not the protected ones. No cure for this problem here.

You can always disable system restore and download "ERUNT".
Emergency Recovery Utility NT.

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

Question: Does ERUNT and NTREGOPT run on Windows 7?
Answer: ERUNT and NTREGOPT in their current versions 1.1j are still compatible with Windows 7, but as in Vista, they will only work correctly if you turn off User Account Control in Windows' Control Panel (move the slider to the lowest position).

Also, a problem has been discovered which on many systems causes ERDNT and NTREGOPT to display a "RegSaveKey: 3" error when optimizing / restoring the BCD00000000 hive. The cause is that after a clean install of Windows 7, the BCD part of the registry which contains Windows' boot configuration data resides on a hidden system partition with no drive letter assigned in Explorer. You can simply ignore this error and continue, or as a workaround, open Disk Managemant in Control Panel and right-click on the partition displayed as "System Reserved" to assign a drive letter.

Future versions of ERUNT and NTREGOPT will of course have these issues fixed. Keep an eye on the homepage for updates.
Hope this helps. Rogermac

Do a computer restart in the 'safe mode', then do your system restore and it will work. Have a good day.

Another reason may be if you are using McAfee quick clean. (Probably other antivirus apps have the same type of cleaner). There is a check box titled:
"System Restore Point Cleaner" see if that is checked.

If you try all the solutions above, know this. My lenovo and Toshiba have the same problems. I haven?t tried the above solutions to the Toshiba yet but I suspect the problem is the same as the lenovo that has been fixed? I tried the above solutions on my lenovo and this is how I fixed it.?. The restore points were working fine until I put my machine on auto update. A few days later I got an update, the machine restarted, and that was the end of the restore option. Everything I tried failed so if installed my disk backup and it still wouldn?t work. After 2 weeks messing around with it I called support 2 or 3 times and they decided the OS installed incorrectly. I didn?t agree so I waited a week and manually did OS updates, now it works. If your machine is under warranty try this ? call support, tell them the last update was a VIRUS from MS. Turn auto updates off. Wait a couple weeks then try the updates. OS problem.

The "vanishing" System Restore points may be a program that automatically creates more hard disk space by deleting the System Restore points on boot. When you get to the System Restore settings, as I explained before in Post 20, look at the amount of disk space currently used and the amount currently allowed. If the spaced used is lower than the amount allowed, a program that you installed is probably deleting the restore points. To find which program is the villain type msconfig in search and uncheck all startup programs that may have a "clean up" feature. Reboot and create a restore point, reboot, and open System Restore and see if the new restore point is there. If it is, one of those programs is causing your problem.

System restore uses a fixed amount of disk space in a folder that's hidden from view to store back up copies of files. Let's say for simplicity's sake, it's allocated to 2 GB. It's actually a percentage of the partition's size. The bigger the drive/partition, the more space gets allocated to System Restore.

So what happens, when you create a restore point when you install something, the system makes copies of the files being replaced. When that 2 GB fills up, the oldest snapshot(s) will be deleted to make room for a newer snapshot.

Sounds like a good thing to me! I have only ever seen Windows restore mess up a computer and NEVER save one. They are an excellent way to backup/save any malware that may be on your computer, too. I have always turned that feature off and have never regretted it.
Sure Windows upgrade and some sevice packs may force me to turn it on,
but immediately afterwards - it's off and remove all restore points. Also restore points are a good way to use up hard drive space... I have routinely seen 20-40 GB! wasted on those (on other peoples computers).

I suggest you maje sure you have the necessary disk space reserved to contain the restore points, Microsoft reccomends you only maintain a short list (date and time wise) as too many chnages can invalidate an older restore point, also you wantg to make sure indexing for the drive is enabled
Lastly, in the unlikely event your time/date in bios is incorrect, be sure and check

Most probably, the space left for volume shadows is too small. Once it is full, the oldest restore points start being erased automatically, and if it's still not enough, the current session since the last restore point is stopped.

Increase the space you reserve for volume shadows:
- open the "System" control panel
- click the "Advanced system parameters" link if you are on Vista or Windows 7 to open the detailed (tabbed) dialog (you may get a SUA prompt, if SUA is enabled, as this is a privilged action that needs to be confirmed)
- select the "System Protection" tab in that dialog, and make sure that the protection is enabled on the system disk (most often C
- select this disk and click the "Configure..." button to open a new dialog
- make sure that you have set the space for volume shadow to 5%-10% of disk space. If not, increase it to let it use at least 5.0 GiB.
- make sure that your disk has enough free space for storing this shadows space (you may need to perform cleanup)

Test your restoration points: create two successive restoration points without any wait between them. Then you should see at least two of them (the second one will have a very small size).
Delete the old restoration points except the last one (the smallest).
Reboot, this retoration point shuold still be there. If not, your size is still not sufficient to record all the modifications on system files and in the registry.

You may need to use the "CCleaner" tool to also free up space in yuor registry and fixing various parameter issues with incorrect data (such as invalid/missnig paths).

It's a good thing you asked this question because I noticed on my wife's laptop there are zero points.In her case it's because the drive space allotted for the points(11G) is less than what is left on the drive(7G).To find the setting, go into system properties, click on the system protection tab, click on configure. There is a slider to adjust the amount of drive space to be used.
Greg

Good day to you Paul,
try checking the settings for disc defragment and disk clean-up via system tools, there is a setting that automatically defrags every day, just set this to off, regards Michael

See KB 301224

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/301224

I would try running CHKDSK /f at the command prompt with Windows unloaded or you can schedule it within Windows, instructions here for Windows 7:

http://www.w7forums.com/use-chkdsk-check-disk-t448.html

John

Buy a Mac

My restore points get erased at the first day of each month !
So this month again -July 1 - the restore points were erased again.

Help .

Are these like rewards points that you get from Microsoft?

Do you have to buy so many products, or what?

this works for me...turn off system restore in control panel,system,system restore click disable enter wait...it will say turned off.total shutdown and restart. when comp back up go back to control panel, system,system restore, turn system restore back on,enter.wait...it will say monitoring. another total shutdown and restart. when comp comes back up.. it should be fixed. also empty your recycle bin as a precaution. this works everytime for me. in windows 7 its harder to find control panel than xp but its there..ever since i changed from norton to mcafee my computer time is not spent on fixing..sorry norton..thats my opinion ..cboardwoman out