[deubanks]

My system restore has stopped working in normal mode but will work in safe mode.

In normal mode, it goes through all the motions and reboots but a popup says that nothing has been changed because an unspecified error occured.

Does anyone know what causes this problem?
Is it a software program, a driver or maybe a windows update?

Is there a way to find what is causing the problem?

I don't know when whatever caused this happened. I had not tried to restore for at least a couple of months until now.

[hberaldi]

I have been having the same problem, but have not tried restoring in safe mode. Besides, I keep Adobe Photoshop in a different drive, and system restore will warn me that that drive will not be restored because it cannot be found ! being that is in the same hard drive !

Does your system restore brings your computer exactly as it was when used in safe mode?

[deubanks]

Yes, it works as it should in safe mode.

[Elvandil]

Usually, SR fails to work when something changed in the system that is irreversible, such as some system updates, driver installations, and so on.

But in Vista, you'll have the most success with SR if you restore when it is not running. Boot from the Vista DVD and do any restorations that way. Then, Windows programs running do not interfere with the process, even though not all points will be available there, either.

[deubanks]

Thanks Elvandil, for the info.

[hberaldi]

Is there any software available capable to do what System Restore does?
I would be happy to buy a crash-proof program that even when everything fails, you can always reinstall the program and retrieve your created points from a database... HB

[NICK G]

Is there any software available capable to do what System Restore does?

Better. It's called True Image or Ghost making a full backup to be restored immediately
following any unrecoverable damage to your system.
(BTW, I love and use System Restore at the drop of a hat. Windows XP Pro)

[Elvandil]

Free Drive Cloners/Imagers:

SystemRescueCD
EaseUs Disk Copy (Copies disks or partitions)
XXClone
CloneZilla GParted LiveCD (Complete partitioning and drive imaging/restoration tools)
CloneZilla
Partition Saving
PCI CloneMaxx
Drive Image XML
HDClone
DriveClonerXP
Self-Image
copyr.dma (Copies disk with bad sectors for recovery)

Commercial Apps:

Active@ Disk Image
O&O DiskImage
Acronis True Image Home
Farstone Drive Clone (Drive image, snapshots, file/folder backups.)
EAZ-FIX Professional and Easy Image
Drive Snapshot
ShadowProtect (Also online backups.)
Keriver Image
Avanquest Copy Commander
Paragon Drive Backup
NovaBackup
R-Drive Image
Norton Ghost
HDClone Pro or Enterprise
Terabyte Image for Windows
Terabyte Image for DOS (can directly access FAT, FAT32, and NTFS partitions)
Spotmau Disk Clone & Backup

[hberaldi]

NickG:
Thank you very much for the response. I own the Acronis True Image. I like it to some extent, but it failed once on a Dell Inspiron (WXP), and besides it uses the F11 key at startup, which makes the recovery system in Dell computers obsolete (there is a hidden partition that makes a Dell's recovery super fast, but it uses Ctrl + F11 at startup. When Acronis is running, it interferes with the recovery as you cannot use F11 for that purpose anymore).
I have never tried the Norton Ghost... it might worth giving it a chance.
I do too love System Restore in WXP Pro, but for a strange reason, mine does not bring the computer to its previous configuration. It always says "No changes have been made to your computer" (I am so sad because of that...), so I need a replacement for it.

Elvandil:
The list you just posted is huge (great!). I will review each of the suggested programs to see if one fits my needs. Thank you so much.

[NICK G]

Here's another article with some things to check for...
Scroll down to Troubleshooting System Restore in Windows XP
I certainly hope you get it sorted as it can be a real life/time saver.

[Rich-M]

Originally Posted by hberaldi

NickG:
Thank you very much for the response. I own the Acronis True Image. I like it to some extent, but it failed once on a Dell Inspiron (WXP), and besides it uses the F11 key at startup, which makes the recovery system in Dell computers obsolete (there is a hidden partition that makes a Dell's recovery super fast, but it uses Ctrl + F11 at startup. When Acronis is running, it interferes with the recovery as you cannot use F11 for that purpose anymore).
I have never tried the Norton Ghost... it might worth giving it a chance.
I do too love System Restore in WXP Pro, but for a strange reason, mine does not bring the computer to its previous configuration. It always says "No changes have been made to your computer" (I am so sad because of that...), so I need a replacement for it.

Elvandil:
The list you just posted is huge (great!). I will review each of the suggested programs to see if one fits my needs. Thank you so much.

What you say may be true about F11, however I doubt it. The primary recovery from Acronis True Image and Ghost should be from a bootable Rescue cd you make from within Windows in Acronis and it is the install disk within Ghost.

[Orumph]

Windows System Restore is unreliable, it's about the only thing I really don't like about Windows, and the built-in optical burning tool is trash (Nero Burning ROM . skip the other junk in Nero).

I personally recommend Acronis True Image (fast and reliable, works easily from created boot disk, also has a Universal Restore (purchased seperately) which usually works to transfer from old system to new) or DriveImageXML (but it is slow, no universal restore and I believe it will only work to restore the full disk from something like WinPE or BartPE.)

Those are the most reliable tools I have ever used. Except Universal Restore has not always been reliable in the past, this may have changed, I have not used it in a very long time.

[NICK G]

Sorry for the wrong link above. Forgot it was Vista and not XP. Senior moment.