Still no restore-points, nor back-ups (and hours of waiting)

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Still no restore-points, nor back-ups (and hours of waiting)
I have three computers with windows 7 (with all updates applied) – 32-bit Home edition.
On the latest and best one of them I have – for half a year now! – two problems, which maybe are interrelated ???
Problem 1 – I can not make any restore-point. Every time I update or (un-)install something I have to wait 20 minutes 😡 till he decides to skip the restore-point procedure and than finally the instalment is done. – No error messages.
Problem 2 — I can not make any back-up using the windows back-up-program. This program starts looking for a back-up medium and keeps doing so for hours. (there is a back-up hard drive intern, that is recognized by bios and by explorer).
Error message: Timeout shadowcopy 0 x 81000101

What I tried already:
— 1 – Disk check : oké
— 2 – From: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w…4-75f140a84a98
Verify if these two services are running (and starting automatically):
1. Volume Shadow Copy service
2. Windows backup
– Also ensure that their dependency services are running. You can check this information from services.msc. Follow the steps below to check the services.
1. Go to start and type services.msc in the search field.
2. Locate the two services.
3. Right-Click on the service one at a time.
4. Select properties.
5. Go to Dependencies Tab.
6. Note the dependency services.
7. Make sure they’re also starting automatically and running.
– 3 – Put off System-restore, reboot and put on system-restore.
Access the link below and follow the steps to turn System Restore on or off.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w…tore-on-or-off

None of this works. Who has a idea what to do, or what to check at least.
Many thanks, Ferdinand

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Hi Ferdinand, their are quite a few users who have trouble as you described. Your best plan would be to buy Acronis TIH or down load Macrium free. Their are some users who have trouble using one or the other but not nearly as many with your method.

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Try creating a System Restore point in Clean Boot. If that works, enable things in groups until you find the culprit. I would look at security software first. (Anti Virus, Firewalls, etc.)

Jerry

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Have you tried running chkdsk?

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Rui,

I think that was his first bullet point.

Zig

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Rui,

I think that was his first bullet point.

Zig

You are right, of course. My fault, sorry :(.

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Thanks Jerry, I’ll try the clean boot (useful link !) to find out what service or what startup is conflicting – if any? (I use simply MSE and Microsoft Firewall)
and Roderunner, you mean that I can use Macrium Free to make restorepoints also or it is only an alternative to windows back-up ?

An account of the results follows in a few days, Ferdinand

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Hi Ferdinand, Acronis or Macrium will make back-up images which are more dependable than restore points done with Windows.

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Acronis True Image and Macrium Reflect are 3rd party Imaging apps. These are, IMO, the gold standard for whole system back ups. They do not create a restore point in the Windows sense. A Windows System Restore Point generally creates a backup of critical Windows system files. An Image on the other hand creates a snapshot if you will of the ENTIRE system, all Windows system files, all customizations, all installed apps, the entire system. If you have a dual boot, or a separate data partition you can choose to back up EVERYTHING! This allows you to restore everything should something bad happen. I store my Images on an Ext USB HD.

Images are not generally created automatically unless you set up your system with scheduled tasks to do so. What I do is to create a new system monthly right after patch Tuesday.

I also back my data up separately from my Image as data tends to change much more often than the system. In my case, since my data needs are minimal, I back up data every couple of days to my wife’s PC, then once per month at the same time I make my new Images, I use a new feature in Win 8 called File History to back up all my data to the same Ext HD.

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I don’t recall SFC /SCANNOW being mentioned here. Worth a try.

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Thanks everybody for the additional information
I will start with sfc /scannow seems te easiest and most promissing.
Ferdinand

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I agree too, for disabling altogether system restore for avoiding delays and choosing a third-party imaging software.
My personal vote going to Paragon (free version), because I had problems with Acronis when I was using it.
But just in case who someone want to try it, many hd vendors has previous versions that are providing for free to their customers.
Eg. Seagate related page is here: http://origin-www.seagate.com/support/internal-hard-drives/enterprise-hard-drives/savvio-15k/discwizard-master-dl/
Keep in mind, that isn’t the latest Acronis version and has only the basic functionality. Still it’s OK for using it for backups.
You have to have a vendor’s hd, connected to PC, in order to work.

Personally, for my Win7 backup, I switched to Clonezilla livecd, but I can recommend it only to very experienced users who are comfort with Linux ncurses interface.

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Hi Ferdinand, does your S P look like this ????

32644-RR

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Dear all,
1 – I have run SFC /scannow : no problems.
2 – I have used msconfig, but with all start-up off and all services on, no difference, No restorepoint, no windows Back-up.
if I shut of all services, but activate Windows Back up: Volume shadow copy; Remote Procedure Call locator; RPC endpoint Mapper; I cannot find DCOM service proces Launcher in the MSconfig screen. (it is there in SVChost-service). After restart, even the Systemprotection tab does not activate.
3- The systemprotection tab has the same content as the one of Roderunner (+ an extra F-disk with protection off ) although the lay-out is different
By the way, I can start svchost.exe only from the configurationscreen, no longer from start or by right-clicking as I could before. Even the “administrator” has no right anymore, only the “trusted installer”

I’m stuck again
Ferdinand

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I don’t have a quick solution, but if I were in your shoes, I would be considering a repair install.
As others have posted here, I don’t use Windows native backup. It’s probably for historical reasons, since I started creating images long before Windows had a similar feature and the Windows backup has never been as featured as my fav backup app, Acronis True Image, but I could probably repair just for the sake of having restore points, which are a quicker and simpler way to recover from small problems, like an issue with Windows update.

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Yeah, I agree with doing a repair install, especially if you have come to rely on System Restore, for whatever reason.
You may also want to go through some of your 3rd party apps, or OS tweak/personal settings, to see what might be interfering with SR.

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I have had a few system restore failures over the years. Re-installed way too many times. Refused to also pay for any imaging backup software. But now there a few good ones available for free. I use Paragon Backup & Recovery 2012 Free edition. I bought an external hard drive for $29 on the internet. Best thing I have ever done for my sanity. Have used it many times. Only because I experiment with way too many software downloads. Microsoft updates also cause me grief from time to time. I also use it for family members on my backup drive in case they end up with a serious virus or just from being careless. That includes Win 7, XP, and Vista systems.

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Thanks all, I’m glad that my case gets so much attention and support.
Yes the repair install is probably the best (third party apps are not the problem, I have started without them, without success).
But I have only an upgrade DVD ( the instalment of win7 is done as an upgrade from XP to Win 7 ) and this DVD refused to do an upgrade again because the present installment is more recent than the files on the dvd. I follow now the instruction from the link of ruirib to make a new bootable win7 sp1 dvd. More news later.
An important argument for repairing restorepoint is also that every new instalment is horribly delayed by the efforts of the installer to make a restorepoint first. Only very few installers have the option to disable that procedure.
ferdinand

Update: there are a lot of warnings,
1- the win7,sp1 iso files are for repairs of (Dell) Oem instalments, with oem keys. I have an upgrade, with an upgrade-key. So I fear my key won’t work with this OEM-installation. ?? is it safe to use this ?
2- to obtain a Dutch version (and I need that, because the existing version is Dutch too. I can find only professional versions, from with I have to delete the ei.cfg file (there is a handy tool to do that) to repair my home premium version. Does that complicate the key-question (see 1) ???

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I have the same problem. Cannot install the media center as it requires a restore point to be created. I will try the repair install.

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Update: there are a lot of warnings,
1- the win7,sp1 iso files are for repairs of (Dell) Oem instalments, with oem keys. I have an upgrade, with an upgrade-key. So I fear my key won’t work with this OEM-installation. ?? is it safe to use this ?

I kinda missed your post, probably because it was an update – a reason to post new issues in new posts, instead of editing existing ones.
Which downloads are OEM downloads?

2- to obtain a Dutch version (and I need that, because the existing version is Dutch too. I can find only professional versions, from with I have to delete the ei.cfg file (there is a handy tool to do that) to repair my home premium version. Does that complicate the key-question (see 1) ???

It might, but I can’t be sure. If you proceed, a full image seems to be even more in order.

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I turned off System Restore. Ran my computer for about a month. Turned System Restore back on. It worked fine. I don’t have a clue what happened.

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About a year ago, I too, had a problem with creating a restore point. Shortly afterwards, I found that my Windows backup didn’t work either. Much research, and then I found the problem. Allotment of space for System Restore. Check out this link: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/How-much-disk-space-does-System-Restore-require
It worked for me.

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Still the same problems (see last post page 2 above). But one new information: I installed Macrium reflect free 5.1 and made an image of the boot-partition “C”. In the start-up of the image-making I got the message: “failed to create Volume Snapshot for C, result code 0x80042316 (using pssnap.sys instead)”. and Macrium made an image nevertheless. On a macrium-forum I found a proposed solution for this errorcode: vssfix.exe. But that does not work for me.
Can the failing Snapshot be the problem for my restore-point and back-ups???
For the moment I continue to prepare a the restore-bootdvd of Macrium to prepare a repair-instalment. That means that I have to trust that the image is good, although the snapshot failed.
Anyway, everybody all the best for 2013

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Hi Ferdinand, sorry to see your still having problems. I can give you a link to download an Acronis recovery ISO, when burned to a CD will allow you to make an image backup.

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Dear Roderunner,
I have an image made by Macrium, and it verifies as good. I dont want to spent money on Acronis that will make an image, probably with the same workaround of using “pssnap.sys”. I just hoped that somebody knows why the Volume Snapshot failed and that by solving that, all other problems would be solved too.
I continue with Macrium, although the next step : installing the “windows automated installation kit” that willl make the recovery CD? will not start yet (probably because it tries to make a restore-point!!)

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Hi dieten, the Acronis recovery ISO I offered you would not cost you anything. You could have tried it to see if you liked it.

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Roadrunner, yes I like to recieve the file. I finally succeeded in getting the Macrium making a recovery CD (win PE3.0) but the CD won’t boot: I/o error 0x00000e9. and without a working recovery-procedure I don’t start the repair-instalment of course. many thanks.

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Good luck.
http://www.mediafire.com/?qbwuxcixxc3ja8d

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Roderunner , I got it. I tell you how it worked by Monday.

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Sorry Roderunner,
I think you overestimated my knowledge. I cant get you Iso file working. I mounted it and copied the files to a sd-card, but that wont boot. Also I started in the mounted drive the mouse.com (the only file that can be opened) the promt-screen started, and than errors with com2; com3; com4 and the screen was gone again. Is this error maybe related to the problem of the Macrium boot-cd, that won’t work because of an I?O error.
After all I don’t have a combination of an image of C and a boot-cd (or card). So I still don’t dare to do the repair install and have still the 2 original problems. :confused:
Ferdinand

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Sorry Roderunner,
I think you overestimated my knowledge. I cant get you Iso file working. I mounted it and copied the files to a sd-card, but that wont boot. Also I started in the mounted drive the mouse.com (the only file that can be opened) the promt-screen started, and than errors with com2; com3; com4 and the screen was gone again. Is this error maybe related to the problem of the Macrium boot-cd, that won’t work because of an I?O error.
After all I don’t have a combination of an image of C and a boot-cd (or card). So I still don’t dare to do the repair install and have still the 2 original problems. :confused:
Ferdinand

To write an ISO file to a CD, just right click the file and choose Open With and then Windows Disc Image Burner​.

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Hi Ferdinand, the ISO must be burned to a dvd or cd before it can be used.

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Ferdinand,

The key word here is burned, not copied.

Zig

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Roderunner,
I feel more and more like a dumby. I burned the iso, and then ?? It does not boot, it opens only if I mount it (as before from the harddrive.) What I’m I supposed to do with it ??

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I was a dummy at one time also. download http://www.filehippo.com/search?q=imgburn and use it to burn the ISO.

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Roderunner, oké Imgburn did its job very easily. Acronis TI(H) boots good, and then: ATI(H) has not found any hard drive. There are two of them (SATA) , and the bios recognize them. So what is this????

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Hi dieten, when booting from Acronis Recovery disk, you have to tell it where to make the Backup Image. I make a new folder and name it as the date it was done on my external hdd.
When restoring a previously made Backup, you have to browse to its location.
Acronis only finds Backups automatically if installed on your pc.

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Roderunner, you didn’t grasp the problem: after booting, I selected: start acronis, but the start up fails with the error-message I mentioned above: No Hard Drive, and then acronis closes again and goes back to the initial screen: select acronis or windows. if selected acronis, the story repeats itself, there does not appear any GUI and there is no way to tell anything to acronis.

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That is very strange, I have made a recovery cd to use on other peoples computer using the ISO I sent you without any problems.
Did you try it on your other computers ?.

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To everybody, I think the problem is getting more clear. The back-up and recovery CD I got from Roderunner works fine on my other Win7 PC. But on my new PC, I have a list of probably related problems: A No Restorepoints can be made; B The windows back-up program won’t work, because it finds no back-up medium; C The Macrium recovery CD boots, but won’t start because of an I/O error; D The Acronis True Image program boots, but won’t start up because “no hard drive detected”.
On the other hand the BIOS and Windows have no problems in seeing and using these hard drives (1 on Sata, partitionated “C” & “D”, the second “F” for back-ups, on the other sata controller together with the DVD-drive).
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in it”.

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Continued: I concluded, if acronis has a problem, then it is maybe a hardware or bios problem, so I went to the hardware shop. They checked: Acronis 2010: failure. Acronis 2012 plus: works fine. Bios and hardware are oké. They made for me an image of C, but I have no recovery-cd of acronis 2012 myself, so I’m still affraid of doing a repair-installment. An this seems to me still the way to advance.

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After reading this thread again from the beginning I’m confused about a couple of things. I think you need to try to figure out what got you in this position.

Did you ever follow the link in post #22 and check the disk space for a system restore? This disk space is also used by volume shadow copies.

Have you been tweaking the system? Running third party “cleanup” products?

Why the insistence on using Acronis when you got Macium to do a backup of the system some time ago?

Joe

--Joe

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Dear Joep517, thanks for your rethinking.
The space for system-restore I have put to 10GB. I cleanup with Ccleaner, that is reasonable safe I suppose. The recovery CD of Macrium boots, but failed to start (I/O error), as failed Acronis 2010, only the Acronis 2012 CD works on my PC, and I want to have a working recovery procedure, before doing finally a repair-install, that in the end should — hopefully — solve my original problem of no restore-points, nor windows back-ups. Does this answer your questions ?

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Unlike many other here, I refuse to use a system cleaner such as Ccleaner. Maybe there is a setting there which is causing your restore points to be deleted. Hopefully, someone else can point you to the correct things to check in Ccleaner.

I’m somewhat surprised that Macrium does not work especially if you got the latest version. Did you try to investigate the I/O error? Were there any details about the error?

I’m less surprised that Acronis 2010 had issues. I know many here user it and swear by it but in my experience through the years Acronis has seemed very sensitive to differing hardware setups.

Joe

--Joe

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I do not believe there is any setting in CCleaner that empties restore points> I have never seen this phenomena in my PC and I do use CCleaner.

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Hi Joe and Medico,

Indeed deleting restore-points with CCleaner is only done in a complete separate tool. In my case from the first day on there have never been any restore-points, that could be deleted, that is just my problem.
I used the very latest version of Macrium, It does not provide any details, it just tells that it won’t start up. I have no idea what to investigate, as the bios is seemingly normal.

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Can you create a restore point manually?

Joe

--Joe

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Dear Joe, the answer is NO! There has never been created any restore-point on this pc by any procedure. Although every recommended check has been done. And windows Back-up does not see any medium for the back-up – although the Bios and Windows explorer do.

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Do yu get an error message if you manually try to create a restore point?

Have you checked the system event logs?

Joe

--Joe

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Dear Joe, rthanks for your continued attention. No there are no error messages, simply the program tries and tries endlessly. After 10 or 15 minutes, I shut down the system. In the events-logs I see only the warnings that windows was shut down while still running a program. When I install something, he also tries to make a restorepoint and after long trying, he skipps it and does the installment nevertheless. So I mostly do installments and updates overnight.

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How long have you let a manual effort continue before shutting down the system?

Does it ever just stop on its own?

Joe

--Joe

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Dear Joe, It was good to try that again. After half a hour it stops on its own with an error message: Restore point could not be made. Time out making a shadow-copy. Error code (0x81000101). Please try again.
I had forgotten about this error-message, but it was that error code, that guided me (3 month ago !) to the checks described in the opening message of this tread.
Now I checked again, that all involved services ( Volume Shadow Copy / RPC / RPC Endpoint Mapper / DCOM Server Process Launcher / Windows Backup ) were started (automatically).
Also today there is no mention of any problem in the System logbook and I used also the log search function for “restore” (and for the Dutch equivalent “herstel”) result: nothing found.
I have put the Error Reporting Service now also on “automatic”.
Ferdinand

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Have you tried turning System Restore off, re-booting the PC, turning System Restore back on?

Joe

--Joe

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Yes that was one of the first things to try. Important is maybe that Windows NEVER EVER made a restore-point, even after the first fresh installment on a clean new drive (the XP of my old computer first and than an upgrade to win7 (with key)) the updates that were than done, could not make a restore-point !! There was no third-party installed at all and also – when I turn of all 3th party services now it doesn’t help. Ferdinand

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Sorry, I don’t remember if you did this already but have you backed up your data and done a fresh install of Windows 7? See Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media for instructions.

Joe

--Joe

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Dear Joe, Beside the data I tried to make an image of C too. Because I have for the upgrade only a “family-pack” of 3 upgrades that are used all three, so I’m afraid To have problems with the key. Second the pack is without SP1, so it did not work and I got from this forum a link too an Win7-sp1 installation dvd, but that is for Dell-oem’s , so than I worry even more about my key. And so came the side-path about image-making – and the failing of Macrium and Acronis 2010 – in this tread about restore points
I found Langa’s article about the repair-install that learn me that I can use my old win7 upgrade dvd after uninstalling SP1. It will take a lot of updating afterwards, but I prefer that to trying the dell-oem-iso.

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Hi Ferdinand,
this will help you to do a 32966-Win7s-Non-destructive-Install

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This a link to Windows 7 SP1 that is not for Dell’s OEM: http://www.mydigitallife.info/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-from-digital-river/

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Thanks Joe and Roderunner . I made a Win7-SP1 Dutch “all-version” DVD. I feel confident to use it, even if the recover of image of C does not work yet. More news follows.
I got an email from Macrium about the “redeploy” function of there professional version: Reinstalling drivers in the boot-configuration of windows, sounds like a possible solution. But I suppose that the repair-install too will do exactly that – if that is the problem.

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While it may not exactly sound like your issue with restore points, I’d strongly recommend that you read the Lounge thread “Daily Restore Points — NOT” which provides a thorough treatment of how restore points are created, and common problems with that working correctly.

FYI, you may not be able to get Window’s System Restore task to cooperate–there seems to be a bug in the command-line program it uses. I recommend using The Windows Club’s Quick Restore Point Maker utility, instead–just set it up in a Task Scheduler job.

I’ve not heard of Windows Backup refusing to make a backup like that–I’ll have to give that one some more thought.

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Problem 2 — I can not make any back-up using the windows back-up-program. This program starts looking for a back-up medium and keeps doing so for hours. (there is a back-up hard drive intern, that is recognized by bios and by explorer).

Some questions:

[*]Are you using Windows Backup to make a file-by-file backup or an image backup?
[*]What backup storage location did you specify in your backup settings?

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Some questions:

[*]Are you using Windows Backup to make a file-by-file backup or an image backup?
[*]What backup storage location did you specify in your backup settings?

The answer is twice : NO, BECAUSE IT DOES NOT START – SEE MY PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
Concerning the Restore point question. Otherwise than the questions about how and when to create a restore point, in the tread you mentioned , my Win7 NEVER created one by all means to start it (and hangs for 1/2 an hour if I try. )
I will try to use the Restore Point Manager from Windows-club, but if it uses the same process, it will hang also. We will see.
Anyway a work-around to make a restore-point, won’t solve the problem that any installment takes more than half an hour, because of the hanging restore-point process of win 7 itself. So I will still need the repair-installment anyway.
See more news in the next post

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The answer is twice : NO, BECAUSE IT DOES NOT START – SEE MY PROBLEM DESCRIPTION

I think that what we’re having here is a failure to communicate…

For context, here were my two questions:

[*] Are you using Windows Backup to make a file-by-file backup or an image backup?
[*] What backup storage location did you specify in your backup settings?

I did read your problem description. Unless I’m completely misunderstanding what you’ve written, you have set up a backup job in Windows Backup (by clicking on “Change settings” in the Backup and Restore Center control panel), then tried to run that job (by clicking on in the Backup and Restore Center control panel). Note that both of my questions are with regard to how you specified the job parameters in Windows Backup before trying to run the backup job.

Question #1 doesn’t have a yes/no answer–you were either trying to make a file-by-file backup of specific folders or an image backup of a drive. Which was it? This may matter in our being able to understand your problem properly.

Question #2 also doesn’t have a yes/no answer–before running a backup job, you must specify where the backup is to be stored. What did you choose as the storage location?

If none of what I just said makes any sense to you, then please give us a detailed, step-by-step description of what you originally did to make a backup, as you must be using a completely different process from what I’m used to (unless, of course, you’ve just given up on Windows Backup, and don’t care to try any further).

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Unless I’m completely misunderstanding what you’ve written, you have set up a backup job in Windows Backup (by clicking on “Change settings” in the Backup and Restore Center control panel), [/Quote]

Sorry Bethel95. There is a complete misunderstanding between us.
If I click on “Change Settings” Windows starts a process that hangs eternally, because it can not find any back-up medium, even not the 2 hard drives.
So all of your questions don’t apply, because I can not configure the windows back-up in the first place. That what I meant by saying “I cant start it”.
It is true that I don’t care about Windows Back-up, there are a lot of alternatives. But I described this problem, because I hope it tells something about my real problem: The restore-point proces that does not work and makes all installations hanging for half an hour.

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I have (finally) good news too: I have a working recovery CD and an recoverable Image of C. Clonezilla 2.0.1.15 did the job. The GUI is a bit hardcore for me, but simply following the recommended options all the time, it works. During startup Clonezilla gives a realtime-log (i.s.o. the blank screen of all the other programs) in which I saw several warning, but the elements in my PC-configurations that Clonezilla does not like, proved to be non-critical for this Linux-program.

Before Clonezilla I have tried DiskWizard from Seagate. It is a Acronis product. It did not work, but provided an log of something of 30 lines, of which I don’t understand any. The Error part was like: ” Not filesynch could mount root. tried Romfs. / Kernel-Panic – not synchronizing VSF. Unable to mount rootfs on unknown Block (1,0) / Pid 1 Comm: Swapper not tainted. ”
The computer did not react on the mouse or keyboard, so I couldn’t make a screen-shot of this secret language.

I go now for the repair-install after I got my recoverable image of C in the end.

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The “repair-install” of Win7 didn’t solve anything.

I’m so glad I made a good recovery image first, even when ik took weeks to find a program that worked with my PC.
I did the repair install. afterwards I had to install a validation update. This update hung for long time. I grew suspicious and checked the old problems: and indeed : – 1 A restore point can not be made (because the shadow-image can not be made) – 2 Impossible to start the back-up program in windows – 3 impossible to make a system-copy using windows. So I gained NOTHING by doing the repair install, only lost the validation and many updates. I better replace the entire partition with the image from Clonezilla.
(side-remark: the app. recommended by Bethel95 is only a a gui, the process is the same non-working one.)

For the moment all advices are exempted. I have no idea anymore What to do ???

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Please, read post # 64. I have tried everything and All problems are still there !!! I have no idea what to do yet!!!

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It appears that you have something else installed that is interfering with the restore point mechanisms. At this point, I’d guess you have a very difficult to diagnose virus or some very unusual third party software installed.

Have you tried a clean re-install? And then tried an update before installing any other software?

If the PC is still under warranty perhaps you should contact the vendor.

Joe

--Joe

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Dear Joe, I have this problem from the first moment when I installed Win7 , before all 3th party software, I have tried running windows with all 3th party services and startup off. Also I can’t imagine how any virus can be there already during first installments. The vendor of the hardware did not provide my Windows, so he has no service on this and the hardware is recognized by BIOS, Windows, Clonezilla, so seems oké.
So, what is left is the possibility that I should reinstall from scratch (low-format)? I hope my 3-times used “family-pack” upgrade-key is still accepted in that case.
What can a clean install do that a repair-instal does not ?

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The upgrade key will work. If you have a problem with Windows validation contact Microsoft. In the USA they are very accommodating when a situation such as this happens.

With a problem such as this the best way to figure out what is going on is to start with a clean install of Windows with a minimal amount of hardware, see if it is fixed before installing any other software. Then apply all operating system patches and see if it still works. If all is OK, install remaining hardware and test again. If all is still well, then begin installing other programs one at a time testing the system restore creation after each.

Joe

--Joe

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Was the original installation a Clean (Custom) Install or was it an Upgrade Installation of a previous installation? If it was an Upgrade Installation that could explain the strange problems you are seeing. Sorry if I am covering ground already covered, but I did not have the time to read all of the posts to see if this question was answered this morning.

I have seen far fewer weird problems with the Clean (Custom) install with the format option used. This seems to give a much more pristine installation.

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Dear Medico,

it was a “clean install” of XP, than validated without updates, and than an upgrade to win7. I go for the clean install of win 7 directly now.

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That is definitely what I would do. Each version of Windows is getting better at Upgrading, but it is quite dependent on the original system, both the OS and the installed apps, H/W etc. And the problems seem to defy solution when they do occur. Good luck with the Clean Installation of Win 7.

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:rolleyes: Thanks everybody for the support and patience. All solved. Win 7 makes restore points and back-ups after a clean install including deleting and remaking the C-partition. 2 remarks:
1 When Setup remade the C-partition, it made a 3th partition of 100 MB too: “reserved for the system”. Is this because I kept the D-partition intact?
2 I used My original upgrade DVD (without SP1). It picked up that there was a genuine windows, stored that during repartitioning, and validated at first demand. I used the old upgrade DVD in state of the new Win7-SP1 installation DVD (see post 58 and 57 if you need this), because I was not sure that Setup of the full-version would store also the genuine windows information and validate my update key. Maybe it is and a enormous lot of updates where unnecessary.

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That System Reserved partition is used by Bitlocker and used for storing the MBR. Because of it’s size, it is not generally worth deleting as you would then have to repair your MBR before the PC will boot.

For future reference, the DVD with SP1 would likely have accepted the same key as the original DVD. The only thing you lost was a little time it took in updating all the Win 7 updates.

Glad you solved your problem. Sometimes these really strange problems take far less time to simply reinstall the OS using the Custom install option rather than the wasted time involved in trying to T/S the problem.

If I may make another suggestion. If you do not already do it, start creating whole system images to assist in quickly recovering from disastrous failures.

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Wow, what a struggle!!! Glad you finally got it resolved. 😎

Thanks for posting back.

Joe

--Joe

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I have just a final question out of curiosity: I had minimized the hardware and connected them after the successful installment one by one (see advice # 70 ). Every time I made restore points. Than finally I connected the hdd (sata) which I use for storing the back-up images. Suddenly all previous restore-points had gone. For a moment it looked like the same old problem again. Luckily not, I could make a new restore-point (and the back-up functions still also). I wonder what happened. Did windows delete the restore points? and if so why? (It is not for lack of space, there was 5 GB reserved for RP, that is enough for 25 of them). I could have needed them just then, if I had to remove the hdd and wanted to return to the previous situation.
And another question, I have put an image of the new C on that second hdd, do I have to image also that little new partition of 100MB? is that of any use?

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I have just a final question out of curiosity: I had minimized the hardware and connected them after the successful installment one by one (see advice # 70 ). Every time I made restore points. Than finally I connected the hdd (sata) which I use for storing the back-up images. Suddenly all previous restore-points had gone. For a moment it looked like the same old problem again. Luckily not, I could make a new restore-point (and the back-up functions still also). I wonder what happened. Did windows delete the restore points? and if so why? (It is not for lack of space, there was 5 GB reserved for RP, that is enough for 25 of them). I could have needed them just then, if I had to remove the hdd and wanted to return to the previous situation.

I’m guessing that you’re basing your assumption about the maximum number of restore points on how XP implemented restore points (a database of information on changes to the system files, along with a chronological hierarchy of backup copies of any system files that had been changed). In Win7, restore points are based on a full image of the protected drive (by default, only the boot drive is protected; it’s possible to enable system protection for other drives). In this scheme, each of these images (called a shadow copy) contains all the info for a restore point, but because all of the drive is imaged, each shadow copy (and, hence, each restore point) takes up much more space than it did in XP. Obviously the size of a single shadow copy will depend on the used space on your boot drive. On my system, I have 35 GB dedicated to system protection on my boot drive (C:, with 62 GB used for Win7 and apps–all my data is on other drives), which currently allows for 33 shadow copies (and, hence, 33 restore points).

In your case, allowing only 5 GB for system protection (I’m assuming you used the “System Protection” tab of the “System Properties” control panel to set this) might leave you with enough room for only 3-6 restore points, depending on the size of the used space on your boot drive. Normally (based on that assumption), and depending on how many times you created a new restore point during your process, your system may have started throwing away older restore points to make room for the new one.

So why might you have lost all restore points? My only guess is that, unlike me, you keep all of your data on the boot drive. If that’s so, then your data is included in the shadow copies, greatly reducing the number of restore points you can save. I guess it’s possible that, in this scenario, you may have reached a point where a single shadow copy was so big with respect to the available system protection space that Windows just barfed, deleted all of the old shadow copies (and restore points), and failed to create a new one. Then when you tried again, the whole system protection space was available, so the shadow copy / restore point successfully created. I would hope that Windows would have handled the situation better than that, but I’ve never run my system with such a small system protection space (your 5 GB).

Bottom line: I’d highly recommend that you greatly increase the size of system protection space. 5 GB sounds like it’s an unstable configuration.

FYI, the shadow copies are also the basis for the “Restore previous versions” feature (for all files on a protected drive). This is a convenient way of restoring any single protected file (not just system files) to a given point in time (corresponding to the times when restore points were created). I’ve enabled system protection on my data drives to take advantage of this. In fact, it’s proved so useful that I no longer keep a local file-by-file backup for my data on any internal HDD (though I do sync all data files to an external HDD that’s periodically rotated offsite). As a further FYI, you can also browse the shadow copies using a utility called ShadowExplorer–it’s a pretty cool way of doing file recovery for a small number of files.

And another question, I have put an image of the new C on that second hdd, do I have to image also that little new partition of 100MB? is that of any use?

I wouldn’t worry about it–that’s the “system” or “system recovery” partition. As previously mentioned, it’s used by Bitlocker and by the system recovery console. As long as you’ve made yourself a recovery CD or DVD and don’t use Bitlocker, you don’t need the system recovery partition. I deleted mine right after buying my Win7 system, and have never missed it. There’s also an option during the Win7 install to not create it in the first place.

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I would only image the OS drive. If somehow the MBR is lost, it is easily restored.

When you noticed the lost Restore Points, did you try to remove the Ext HD to see if they reappeared, or if the Restore Point you created after attaching the Ext HD was still there. That is somewhat strange, but with good Images, I personally do not really care on my PC as I do not use the Restore Points, just my Images if something bad happens. (Oh I see it’s time for a new Image. WU just updated my PC)

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