This question is about an HP laptop with Windows Vista. System restore has always been my go-to fix for problems with my laptop, and up until the last week or so it always worked. But all of a sudden, for no reason I can figure out yet, my system restore points keep disappearing- apparently every few hours. I can make a new one (either with Task Scheduler or manually), and it may stick around for a little while (and I check multiple times a day), but then it disappears- and I can’t figure out what’s causing it. I’ve googled it, and can find similar problems (though none seem to have the same “can create SR points but they disappear after a few hours”) but none of the solutions seem to apply. I’m moderately computer-savvy, I think. I had the idea to make a SR point and copy it into another directory (or onto a disc) and do this once a week or so in case I need it, but I couldn’t get into the System Volume Information directory (it says “Access is denied”) despite me having all the right permissions as far as i can tell. Any ideas?
How much free disk space do you have? Windows will delete system restore points when you start running low on disk space.
A program with a memory leak will cause an increase in the size of the memory swap file, which will decrease your available disk space and may cause system restore points to be deleted. Are you running any programs that run for an extended period of time and chew up a lot of memory?
Certain types of malware/viruses will delete system restore points to prevent you from restoring to a point prior to their infection.
Thanks for the response.
I have about 220 GB of free space- that should be plenty, I believe. I don’t believe I’m running any memory-heavy programs. That probably leaves malware- so I’ll look into that angle for now.
I had to defrag my computer once, and I used Ultradefrag which is a free program and very good.
It also features a boot defrag, which is handy for defraging files that are locked. It defrags your files before Windows boots up. I found out, it also removes all your restore points.
Good program otherwise.
So that is one thing that’ll do it.
How much space do you have alloted?
To find out do this:
Start -> type CMD
Right click on CMD and run as administrator
Type: vssadmin list shadowstorage
Thanks Carryon- it says:
“Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 858.25 MB
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 3.096 GB
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 68.385 GB”
I haven’t solved this problem yet. Malwarebytes removed some crap I had, but this problem still remains (I create new System Restore points, but they disappear at random intervals- between 2-12 hours after I create them). I’d appreciate any other insights!
Do you run Malwarebytes in safe mode? What antivirus do you use? I would use Microsoft Security Essentials or Avast or AVG Free (only put one of those three on at a time). As well as Malwarebytest.
Also you will want to run check dist. Right click on your drive and it will say, “Check disk for errors” You will want to say yes and you will want to fix all errors. Then it probably will tell you, it can’t do this now, would you like to do it next time you reboot. Then say yes.
Then reboot the computer. First you want to make sure there are no errors on the drive that causing it.
If that’s OK , the boot into safe mode and run your antimalware. You get into safe mode by restarting the computer and hit F8 repeatedly till safe mode comes up.
Once you know all that is fine, then you should see if you installed any programs around the time this started happening. Some program may be conflicting with your system.
Thanks- I’ll try all this when I get home this afternoon.
I use Avira for my antivirus. I ran check disk, and it fixed some errors. Next I’m going to reboot in safe mode and run malwarebytes.
Safe mode malwarebytes full scan run, but no errors found. I’ll just have to wait and see if it cleared up.
That sounds a lot like a virus. I am unaware of an issue where there’s that much memory remaining where system restore points are being systematically erased other than by malicious programs.
If so, neither my Avira (which I’ve been running for the life of this computer- this problem just started in the last few weeks) nor malwarebytes (which I only loaded in the last few days) have found it.
That’s common virus behavior; they delete restore points so you can’t use system restore to clean them. Make sure you have an up-to-date scanner.
If Vista works like Win7, go to Control Panel/System and click on System Protection in the left hand column of options. There should be a Protection Settings section with a list of available drives. First make sure that protection is turned on for your boot drive, then highlight it and click on the Configure button. There will be a slider that allows you to set the maximum space available for saving restore points. If it’s set too low, that might be your problem.
I found System Protection, but there was no slider like this. But I don’t think space is the problem- I have several hundred GB free on the hard drive.
I have Avira Free Antivirus, and it’s up-to-date. Should I get a different one?
This is similar to an issue I had awhile ago running Vista (not that this was Vista’s fault in any way…it wasn’t). I had something similar to what you describe and while I could identify and eliminate parts of it with free anti-malware/spyware…I just couldn’t get rid of it entirely due to rootkits or whatever.
Solution: re-install operating system. Sure, it’s a bitch in many ways, but it is as sure-fire of a method as any you will find. Offload your important docs, pics, programs onto a flash drive or an external drive and wipe that bitch out.
It sucks re-setting all your preferences but it’s better than having your issues plague you forever (if a virus is indeed the issue) and it’s always amazing to see how fast a new, clean OS operates before we bog it down with extraneous programs.
You have to click the Configure button to see the slider. Or maybe Vista is different, although I thought it was very similar to Win7.
But free space is not the issue. I have a couple dozen GB of free space on my boot partition, and yet my maximum space for restore points is set at 900 MB (I prefer to use image backup and restore to recover from problems, so I deliberately keep my restore point space fairly small), so keep looking for it. Maybe google vista system protection and see what you find.