system restore

shovel

hello
wonder could you help me out with an answer to a question.

the system restore program does not work on my pc. pc is a dell dimension 4300 running windows xp. used to work when it was new. was not an issue up to now but got broadband and hope to download stuff and system restore would be handy if something goes wrong

when i try the program by picking a restore point, it seems to go through all it should do and then restarts ok but when the system restore screen comes back on it says"your computer cannot be restored to" whatever date i had picked. have created restore points myself and tried to restore to those dates but still the same.

the only odd thing is just as the pc shuts down before restarting sometimes i get a message that says "the application has failed because the computer is shutting down"
any help appreciated. shovel

gamer

Download spybot sd,ad aware, avg antivirus do full system scan.You may have a virus or spyware that damaged your registry.ANY dell pc from 2003 approx onwards, has dell system restore built in ,has copy of winxp plus applications in a hidden partition drive c:\ .Look at dell.ie ,customer support, it has all the info on the 4300 ,system recovery,etc.IT might be worth reinstalling windows,if you have all the applications ,cdroms stored away from when you got the pc.OR go to safe mode,does restore work in safe mode,boot ,hold down f8 key.

Ruu_Old

You System Restore points must have been corrupted somehow. You might have to just System Restore off/on again but you'll lose the restore points. Have you got anti virus and anti-spyware software running?

shovel

thanks for the replies.
running norton internet security 2006 with automatic updates. i do full system scan twice a week. downloaded spybot search and destroy and ran same. it picked up some stuff but made no difference to system restore prob.
i understand from the avg website that norton anti virus sees avg as a threat and won't allow you to download avg.

not confident about windows install. wife has loads of photos and stuff on pc. would i lose all that with a windows install?

Buzz_Irl

Hi

Firstly back up all the photos etc onto a cdrom/dvd/external hard disk.

Then you can insert your windows system disk and boot up the PC - it will give u the option of Repairing your system - this may work and will avoid doing a full re-install.

Also - I have re-installed windows before and it only changes windows files but some applications will save data in the "My Documents" folders and I dont know what happens these.

The option of turning off then on the system Restore sounds the best next step - even if you lose your previous restore points.

Good luck - and dont forget to do the backups before trying anything !!!

Gadgetman496

shovel wrote:

hello
wonder could you help me out with an answer to a question.

the system restore program does not work on my pc. pc is a dell dimension 4300 running windows xp. used to work when it was new. was not an issue up to now but got broadband and hope to download stuff and system restore would be handy if something goes wrong

when i try the program by picking a restore point, it seems to go through all it should do and then restarts ok but when the system restore screen comes back on it says"your computer cannot be restored to" whatever date i had picked. have created restore points myself and tried to restore to those dates but still the same.

the only odd thing is just as the pc shuts down before restarting sometimes i get a message that says "the application has failed because the computer is shutting down"
any help appreciated. shovel

You can safely reinstall the "System Restore" section of Windows without afecting anything else. The only loss will be any existing restore points. But if they don't work as it is, so what!.

Here's how to do it.

Warning: This will delete ALL existing restore points.



Go to Start - Run and type %Windir%\INF then press enter.



In Windows Explorer go to Tools - Folder Options - View Tab and uncheck “Hide extensions for known file types”.



Find the sr.inf file, right click on it and select Install.



Or simply type or paste the following command into the Start - Run box and press enter.



rundll32.exe advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection C:\Windows\Inf\sr.inf



If the Files Needed dialog box appears, click Browse and point to the i386 folder on the Windows XP CD or to the i386 folder on the hard drive, if it exists, of for systems updated with the Service Pack 2 CD or Download from Microsoft, browse to the C:\Windows\ServicePackFiles\i386 folder. The retail version of Windows XP (SP2) also contains the latest version of the files needed.



These are the files needed to perform the reinstall:



FILE NAME:
FILELIST.XML
RSTRUI.EXE
SR.SYS
SRCLIENT.DLL
SRDIAG.EXE
SRFRAME.MMF
SRRSTR.DLL
SRSVC.DLL
SRVSVC.DLL
SP2 VERSION #:

5.1.2600.2180
5.1.2600.2180
5.1.2600.2180
5.1.2600.0

5.1.2600.2180
5.1.2600.2180
5.1.2600.2577



Source: http://bertk.mvps.org/html/srfail.html

shovel

apologies for not posting till now (xmas, kids, santa etc)

i turned off and on system restore as you suggested, and it worked, thank god.
thanks to all for all the help and suggestions and help.


a very happy and safe xmas to you all.

shovel