System Restore won't work

[MickMick11]

Hi,

Can really be sure if this relates to the problem I posted under "Primary Disk Drive not found..." or not, but both problems seem to have begun at the same time. It keeps telling me "...cannot restore computer to this date, no changes made".

It won't run in Safe Mode either. I hope this isn't a stupid question, but: Is SR not working because the Drive is unfound, or is the Drive unfound because SR's not working?
I have a Dell GX240, runs XP Professional, bought it second hand so I didn't get any recovery discs, etc.
I'm looking into getting a new hard drive, but won't that cause me to lose my missing files if I don't a way to recover them soon?
Thanks for all tips and suggestions.

 

[Bobbye]

See if this will work:

System Restore Troubleshoot:

Q.What should I do if System Restore does not work?
A.Try these steps if System Restore does not appear to work:

1.Ensure the System Restore service is running. For more information, see: How can I verify that the System Restore services are running on my machine? (see site)

2.Verify that you have enough free space on all your drives as required by System Restore. If the free space on any partition system restore is monitoring falls below 50 MB, System Restore will suspend and purge out all restore points to free up disk space. It will automatically reactivate when 200 MB+ free space is available. For more information, see How the System Restore Tool Handles Hard-Disk Space Usage. (see site)

3.Examine event logs for any system restore-related errors that could help you identify the problem.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/faqsrwxp.mspx

 

[fw2004]

Go into your BIOS setup. Check to see if the HDD is recognized. If it is not, then there is a hardware failure. It could be the drive, or perhaps just a cable came unplugged.

If the HDD is recognized, but you are unable to boot from it, you may be able to recover your files from it by installing another HDD as the master, and connecting the bad one as the slave.
Install Windows on the new HDD, then see if you can access the bad one.
Sometimes a drive will lose its boot sector, and the OS will not boot, but you can still access the drive to restore your data.

if this works, copy all of your data from the bad HDD. Later, you can search for errors on the bad drive, and determine what the cause of the failure was.

 

[Tedster]

if the drive is not found, can it be seen in bios? If no - then you have a hardware problem, if yes, then you have a corrupt partition and you need to use this drive as a slave or secondary to extract whatever data you can. System restore is a poor feature. I highly recommend GOBACK or just using windows backup to a second drive.

Important data should always be saved to a second, auxillary device.

 

[MickMick11]

Just did a BIOS fix (downloaded from Dell) and am no longer getting that message. But, thanks to people here, Microsoft communities, and a few other sites, I've learned that I should have been backing up my system all along. I had been researching zip drives, USB Flash drives, etc., but all the confusing info made it difficult to make a decision. Then the incident happens before I could decide.
Only in the past week have I found out about Acronis TrueImage and other such programs. I've definately getting it next payday.

 

[Bobbye]

Sometimes, the harder you think, the more confusing it is! As for flash drive- easy one. Don't think that one for death!

And as for backups, the very first lesson anyone should learn is backup, backup, backup! Even if you don't back up the entire system, back up anything you don't want to lose! That is Rule 1 of computing!

 

[MickMick11]

the only back up I ever did before was to save some text files to floppy disks. I really thought I had time to figure out the rest before anything bad could happen. Anyway, I just got a CD/DVD burner, so now I have to figure out to back up data files to DVD. And, as soon as next payday gets here, I'm getting AcronisTrueImage.

 

[Bobbye]

So back up what you don't want to lose to CD or floppy- doesn't matter- just get it somewhere. Acronis is more of a full system backup or image. but if you have docs and images you don't want to chance losing, put them on disc-now!

 

[MickMick11]

Believe me, I'm not making that mistake again. I'm going to be a back-up addict from now on. And tell all my non-geek friends to do the same till they get sick of hearing it.