System Restore screen is blank!

Hi, Rich The System Restore screen is still blank. I did need to put a space between the CD and \. I went through all of the steps. Right before typing exit, it asked "Overwrite software? and I don't remember all of the options - I know one of them was yes to all. I didn't know, so I typed "y" enter. Then I typed exit. But the System Restore is still not there. One question I do have is the directions say to choose the second to last option folder which I did, but I noticed the date and time of that restore point was 12:01 a.m. 3/29 or 3/28, can't remember which. Shouldn't I have chosen one with a date and time sooner than the last couple of days? Is that why it is still blank? Anxiously awaiting your reply! Thanks.

So if I understand what this process is, I'm thinking I should go back in and look at the dates of the different restore points, right? So I should maybe pick the RP # from maybe Monday or Wednesday of last week when the computer was running just fine?

Yes, you need to pick a date before the problem occurred. Looks like the procedure as it's written is good only if it's done immediately. I'll re-work it to specify picking a date prior to the problem occurring.

So I went back and when I typed cd system~1\_resto~1, I got Access Denied. Then I did the other that you had said if I got denied access and when I typed ren system system.bak, it said "A directory or file with the name system.bak already exists." What now?

Did you previously type ren system system.bak when using the other directory (the first time you tried this). If so, that's why system.bak already exists. Try ren system system.bak2, see if that works.

It did work!!! The system restore is back and the computer seems to be back to normal. Thank you so much for all of your help, Rich. I know I won't be using the Advanced Registry Optimizer anymore!!! One last question, can I go into System Restore and remove the last few days from there?

Congratulations Rich, That was a fine piece of work. and EileenOC, maybe for the future health of your computer this might be a good time to ask Rich about disc imaging…. Regards paws

Thank you, Paws. I made a donation to this site. Rich, can you tell me about disc imaging?

Well Done

Yes, you can use Disk Cleanup to remove all but the last System Restore Point.

First, create a new System Restore Point of the current, working system.

Click on Start then All Programs then Accessories then System Tools and finally System Restore
Select Create a Restore Point and click Next

then:

Open My Computer
Right click on your C: drive and select Properties
Click on Disk Cleanup
Click on the More Options tab
Click on Disk Cleanup under System Restore
Click Yes to the Are you sure prompt

Now is a great time to implement a good backup strategy that will protect you from a hardware or software failure in the future.

I'd recommend getting an external USB 2.0 drive enclosure, with fan (I like to keep drives cool) and a drive as large as or larger than your current drive, either PATA/IDE or SATA, which ever the enclosure supports. Alternatively, you could add a 2nd hard drive internally to your computer (PATA/IDE or SATA, depends on what your system supports) and use it to backup to in place of, or in addition to the external drive. I use both a 2nd (3rd actually) internal hard drive and an external hard drive.

Then you can buy Acronis True Image (my preference) or Norton Ghost or go the free route and use DriveImage XML or Macrium Reflect Free Edition (I use this on my systems at work).

If you go the DIXML route (I use this on my Web Server) then you will want to also get and build Ultimate Boot CD For Windows (UBCD4WIN). It is a bootable CD that you create on your computer using your own copy of Windows XP. One of it's included tools is DIXML so in the event of a hard drive failure you just replace the drive, boot the UBCD4WIN CD and restore from your external USB drive.

Macrium Reflect has an option to create a System Rescue disk that you can boot to restore a Macrium backup with. Necessary in case you can't boot the hard drive.

Rule #1: Keep the backup current.

I use Acronis and keep one full backup and 13 incremental backups on my internal drive, then start over again. I do this automatically, backing up my C:, D: , E: and F: drives every night at 9:30PM. Full backup takes a little over 30 minutes, incrementals take 3-4 minutes.

Evey month or two or whenever I make significant changes to my system, I do a full backup to my external USB 2.0 500Gb hard drive. I also use this same drive to backup my Laptop and my Web Server.