Restore points disappear
This is now the second time this has happened.
All restore points are gone. I didn't delete them.However I did have a Power Failure two days ago. Can power interrupt cause loss of all restore points?
Answers
- fanfarenj,
Ideally you should not lose you restore points on every reboot. There seems to be some problem while new restore point creation that is failing. Can you provide the type of storage devices connected to your machine? Also, please tell me how much is the system volume(where windows7 is installed) size and how much is shadow copy storage space allocated. For the latter, run the following command in elevated mode and run the output across:
vssadmin list shadowstorage
Thanks,
Praveen- Marked As Answer byRonnie VernonMVP, ModeratorSaturday, October 24, 2009 8:59 AM
All Replies
Only user interaction to backup/restoration data I know of is
a) Right click Computer Icon->Properties->AdvancedSystemSettings->SytemProtectionTab where configure will show disk space allocated (if not enough, would auto delete old I'd epect)b) Right click C: drive->Properties->Hit DiskCleanup->MoreOptions Tab: System Restore&Shadow Copies. Incuding this in cleanUp will remove all but most recent.
I could see power failure hitting an ongoing, but not previous.This is now the second time this has happened.
All restore points are gone. I didn't delete them.
Are you dual booting with Windows XP? I was and lost all my restore points in Windows 7. I was pointed towards,
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/926185
There are ways around it,
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/127417-system-restore-points-stop-xp-dual-boot-delete.html
Old Mig15 pilot. Using Windows 7 RC Vista that works.- Marked As Answer byDale QiaoMSFT, ModeratorThursday, July 30, 2009 3:58 AM
- Unmarked As Answer byfanfarenj Tuesday, September 08, 2009 3:02 AM
- No, another power interruption, and the restore points are gone again. Can't blame dual boot, because I did not boot into Vista in the interval.
No, another power interruption, and the restore points are gone again. Can't blame dual boot, because I did not boot into Vista in the interval.
It is my belief that regardless whether you boot into WinXP or not, the effect of having WinXP on a dual boot is sufficient.
I had WinXP on a separate hard drive but the effect was the same for me.
As far as I am aware unless you take steps to prevent this happening, it will continue.
Old Mig15 pilot. Using Windows 7 RC Vista that works.- Now if I started XP or Vista and it did not support Windows 7 restore points I could understand although it is not good.
But if i never start Vista and System Restore Protection Setting is OFF for the Vista Drive, and the Windows 7 Restore Points still suffer a mysterious demise, that I will not forgive.
I'd have to say this is a serious bug in Windows (and Vista and XP as well).
Now with RTM I am losing the prior restore points on every restart, not just on power-fail restarts.
Separately, the Task Scheduler started System Restore point creation still is not creating restore points at pre-specified times, even though the task log shows the operation began and completed successfully.
Windows 7 RTM 64-bit - RTM is deleting all Restore Points every time I reboot Windows 7.
With Beta and RC it was not so bad because the problem only occurred after cross boot back to Vista.
Is anyone else seeing this?Windows 7 RTM 64bit
- Is there no one else to encounter this ??
- I am using Window 7 x64 RTM and also multiboot Vista x64 and have not had any problems losing restore points. The only time I have seen restore points go missing is with a multiboot with XP if XP can see the Vista/Windows 7 disk. I normally hide it under those conditions.
Also if there is not enough storage space allocated to Windows 7 for the restore points.
Thanks for the data point.I have to assume most users don't know about or don't care about restore points.
Of those that do most aren't looking to see if they are there, until they need them.Of those that do look and see they are missing, how many are monitoring and posting to this forum?
Of those, how many find this thread?With a problem that has gone from bad (RC) to worse (RTM), I can't be the only Windows 7 RTM user with Restore Points vanishing, now, can I ??
- Hi fanfarenj,
I responded to a related thread as well http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprogeneral/thread/e97d2a1a-a3da-44f3-b531-6c230bd2410e. Can you check whether there are VSS event logs (eventvwr.exe) indicating that snapshots were deleted and send the event details?
Thanks,
Praveen Praveen-
OK.
Actually there is an event log record. It comes out every time I restart now.
But it doesn't make much sense (typical). There is plenty of space allocated.
Moreover, there does not seem to be any way to "choose a shadow copy storage volume".I have Windows 7 Protection ON, Vista Protection OFF (which probably makes no difference).
I am not rebooting into Vista. (Vista/Window 7 has the same interference problem as Xp/Vista)Please see prior posts for more details.
---
"The shadow copies of volume C: were deleted because the shadow copy storage could not grow in time. Consider reducing the IO load on the system or choose a shadow copy storage volume that is not being shadow copied."EventID 25
Source volsnap---
- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
<Provider Name="volsnap" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49158">25</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-10-01T02:55:41.312500000Z" />
<EventRecordID>16543</EventRecordID>
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>Victor-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
- <EventData>
<Data>\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy3</Data>
<Data>C:</Data>
<Binary>000000000200300000000000190006C0030000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000</Binary>
</EventData>
</Event>- fanfarenj,
Ideally you should not lose you restore points on every reboot. There seems to be some problem while new restore point creation that is failing. Can you provide the type of storage devices connected to your machine? Also, please tell me how much is the system volume(where windows7 is installed) size and how much is shadow copy storage space allocated. For the latter, run the following command in elevated mode and run the output across:
vssadmin list shadowstorage
Thanks,
Praveen- Marked As Answer byRonnie VernonMVP, ModeratorSaturday, October 24, 2009 8:59 AM
- We've discussed this at another thread; I also saw all my System Restore points disappear after re-booting. After a complete format, re-install of W7, and systematic re-install of each program, checking & testing after each install, the cause turned out to be the installation of Microsoft Office 97 - even though only Word & Excel were installed. This was also the cause of the UAC setting refusing to change. And I wonder what else, that I didn't notice? Seems strange.... very strange, but I proved it. 100% sure. (I'm using OpenOffice.org now).
For me, the only solution seeing as I couldn't use System Restore, was to wipe the HD and re-install W7. If there is a true "fix" to remedy the problem, I don't know about it.- Proposed As Answer byrje49 Wednesday, October 28, 2009 12:36 AM
- OK. But I don't have Office 97 installed and never did have it installed.
- OK, any other old MS programs? Looks like there are other causes for the same behavior out there. At the other thread I mentioned, there are a few others who have the "Office 97" poison.
As I described, after my format & re-install, I set a restore point before every installation, then checked things afterwards. It might sound tedious, but it's my problem-solving method and I knew I would find my answer. Good luck. I don't have any issue with UAC.
But I do consider System Restore an important function.
It's good to have some clue that installing a program, Office 97, or some other one or ones the identity of which are yet to be determined, can interfere with System Restore function.But I don't have time or energy to do a clean install and reinstall everything on my system, each one at a time.
When it comes time to install the 10/22 version, I will do a clean install then and hope for the best.
- I have a single boot system running Windows 7 32bit RTM, I just discovered that all but one of my restore points are gone, I made at least 6 of them.
Something is clearly wrong here.
Also, a few days ago, before I reinstalled Windows 7, I noticed that I have no restore points, when I clearly remember setting several.
Before my recent re-install, I did a clean install because I was running XP before.
I did install Office 2007 Publisher only.
I wonder if its Visual Studio 2008, or Visual Basic 2008 Express, because before I reinstalled those, I had all my restore points.
- Hi allanm1,
In Windows 7, how much is the space allocated for restore points on you system drive. To find this, launch SystemPropertiesProtection.exe, select the System volume, click Configure, and see how much Max Space Usage is there. By default, it would be 3% in Windows 7, and if you install/re-install large applications like Visual Studio, Office, this space might not be enough to keep all the restore points and you might lose your previous restore points. If you wish to have more restore points, please change the Max Space to a higher value for all the drives that have System Protection ON. If this is not the case, i.e., the Max Space was more than required by the installations, let me know so that I can investigate further.
Thanks,
Praveen- Proposed As Answer byPraveen Tiwari[MSFT]MSFTWednesday, November 11, 2009 12:44 PM
- I just looked and they are all gone again. I had several made automatically over the last few days. Also about a week ago, I changed my restore size to 10% or 30GB, It is possible that they were removed because I ran out of space, but shouldn't there be at least one of my recent restore points?, or does it just delete them all and not allow any new automatic restore points to be created? Anyway, it says my current usage is 0. I just created a new point and it used 175.07MB. I will watch it and see how it goes.
- Hi allanm1,
My situation seems very similar to yours - I had a dual-boot XP Pro / Win 7 Ultimate RC 7100, and then clean-installed Windows 7 Pro over XP Pro, leaving me with a dual boot Win 7 Pro/ Win 7 Ultimate. When I was happy with the Win 7 Pro, I removed the Win 7 Ultimate and re-partitioned to just one disk.
I also installed Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Basic 2008 Express, but I'm not sure restore points were being kept before then.
My restore points are being deleted upon every reboot, and I have. as yet, not found a solution - has anyone else ? - Hi allanm1,
Unfortunately, if the space usage exceeds the Max usage, you would lose all your restore points. But, there is a daily scheduled task that monitors the restore points on your system, and if none is present, would create one. Still, your concern is valid.
Thanks for the feedback. If the problem still persists, please let me know.
Thanks,
Praveen - Hi bptechnet,
Could you also follow the steps that I suggested to allanm1? Let me know if it works, or you still face the issues.
Thanks,
Praveen - There is something defiantly wrong with the restore points.
This is also happening on my computer at work as well. My son said that he thought his had dissappeared on him too.
I decided to do some testing over the last several days.
The first test, I had 5 restore points, and there was only a small portion of my selected 30GB size used, but, when I turned
the computer on the other day, they were all gone.
I created 3 more restore points over the course of that day. The restore points used a tiny sliver ~500MB out of 30 GB available.
Today, when I turned on my computer this morning, They were all gone again. Remember, I had set my size to 10% or 30GB of space!
My hard drive is less than half full.
Also, that daily scheduled task is not creating them when there is no restore points.
Something is broken with regards to the System Restore, I really hope the Microsoft techs can fix this.
- But if, as I've been told, Microsoft techs don't read this, are they aware of this problem? Is there a way to tell if it's been officially reported?
- Hello alanm1,
Please send me *.etl files under %systemdrive%\Windows\Logs\SystemRestore to pravtiw-nospam[at]microsoft[dot]com, remove '-nospam' to get the actual email id.
Thanks,
Praveen - Praveen, I'm getting a similar behavior from Windows 7 Professional. On every restart all system restore points are deleted. So far I did a repair install with no improvement and after that I did a clean install with no improvement. After the first boot of the clean install one of the first few errors on the event log was:
Event ID 25. Source: volsnap
The shadow copies of volume C: were deleted because the shadow copy storage could not grow in time. Consider reducing the IO load on the system or choose a shadow copy storage volume that is not being shadow copied.
Any thoughts on this?
Thanks,
Jorge - Dear Praveen, Thanks for the response. You seem to be concentrating on the symptoms, rather than the cause ie: 1) what version of Windows 7 was installed ? - mine was Windows 7 Professional FULL version; 2) what installation options were used ? - I used the 'Custom (advanced)' option, with no further parameters selected (default install); 3) what was the previous system ? - mine was dual-boot with XP Pro on C drive/Win 7 Ultimate RC7100 on D drive. I installed to the C drive, and then had dual-boot Win 7 Pro / Win 7 Ultimate. I subsequently removed Win 7 Ultimate. The solution, for me, was a complete re-installation of Windows 7 on my C drive using the 'Custom (advanced)' install option with the 'Format Disk' parameter option selected ie. a truely 'clean install'; after moving all my data to my D drive. Installation without this formatting seems to be a form of Upgrading, and this creates a huge Windows.old folder and leaves behind residual rubbish on the C drive, probably causing the Volsnap problems. When I looked at System Volume Information after my first (problem)install it initially showed as 0mb, then showed 310mb after I created a Restore Point - I then looked at the contents properly and found that it had files totalling over 4GB. I deleted this data (using Knoppix), but the Volsnap problem remained. It is possible that these problems do not occur when using an UPGRADE version of the Windows 7 dvd, and I have also never tried the Upgrade option with my FULL version dvd.
- @allanm1, @Jorge, @bptechnet
Please send me *.etl files under %systemdrive%\Windows\Logs\SystemRestore to pravtiw-nospam@microsoft.com, remove '-nospam' to get the actual email id. I would be glad to take a look at them and see what's the problem.
Thanks,
-Praveen - I am having the exact same problem as Jorge,I get the same error in the system logs ...I've tried everything in this thread and still have no solution.I have the upgrade version of Home Premium.Any help is appreciated.I sent my etl files to Praveen as well hoping for a solution.
