System Restore

[Dave Davison]

My computer has almost slowed to a crawl especially when I attempt to open the CD player so I ran Malware Bytes and CCleaner both of which found nothing untoward. My next thought was to run a System Restore only to discover that - because I had not created one this month - I would go back to March. However, when clicking on the left arrow in System Restore it will not index back to the previous month. Any ideas one and all? Regards Dave.

[stuck]

I've never had reason to use System Restore but if you can't navigate back to March in the calendar perhaps that means there isn't anything to navigate back to, i.e. there is no restore point in March either?

Also, I may be wrong but my understanding of System Restore is that is not a back-up application so rolling back to a restore point is not like reversing everything you've done on the PC since that point. If that's right then I doubt you'll speed up your PC by going back to a restore point.

Slow PC performance is more often down to lack of RAM and/or HDD space. If you've already used Ccleaner to remove unnecessary temp files and the like, i.e. as well as using the 'Analyse' button you've also clicked on the 'Run Cleaner' button, then the next thing I'd do is, in My Computer/Explorer, right click on C: drive and select properties. How much free space do you have left?

I know from your other posts you work with video files. They can take up vast amounts of HDD space. Can you off load to DVD all but the few you are working on at the moment?

Ken

[Dave Davison]

Thanks for the comments Ken, my "C" drive is 39 GB- of which 4.6 GB is taken up with Prog Files > 13.6GB Docs & Sett > 7.11 with Windows; making 15.21 GB. Free space is shown as 11.2GB. I have trimmed Docs & Settings down - as far as I feel safe to do - to the "D" drive where I also store videos. Should I expect the computer to run efficiently with 11.2 GB running XP. I have not experience this slowness since I had the computer built a couple of years ago. Regarding the Sys Restore not indexing back to March, I am not sure whether I created any restore dates in that month but certainly did in Feb, surely it should scroll back to Jan if needed. Regards Dave.

[Dave Davison]

......further to this thread, it seems the terrible slowness is particularly associated with the CD drive. All the other shortcut icons on the screen open the relative files pretty mush as usual but when I click the CD drive icon an old fashioned timer just rotates -seemingly forever. Don't know if this factor points to some specific fault but maybe it may mean something to someone? Regards Dave.

[Bigaldoc]

Hmmm, Dave, I can tell you one thing from my experience in the past. My Dell desktop is now 5-6 years old. But during its early life, while still under warranty, I had a CD/DVD drive fail which Dell happily replaced.

One of my symptoms WAS extreme slowness in accessing the drive! What was strange about mine was that after the "throbbing" spinner, it WOULD eventually access a CD but never a DVD. Dell put me through all manner of testing online while on the phone with them and eventually agreed to replace the drive.

Since that time (fingers crossed) I've not had any problems. I have no idea whether this is any relationship to your current problem, but it's something to think about.

[Dave Davison]

Thanks for the info Al, computers are truly amazingly mind blowing things but they are also very fickle and unpredictable. Why this annoying slowness pounced on me so suddenly I haven't a clue, the computer (which bears no manufacturers name as it was built by the owner of a local shop for off the shelf parts as I waited) is just over two years old and has never presented this sort of irksome problem before. So on the off chance - for no logic reason- I decided to delete the CD drive shortcut icon on the desktop and replace it with a new one & to my complete surprise, there is a marked improvement in the time it takes for an inserted disc to start. Experts will say this minor change should have no effect but my frustrations are for the moment appeased so time will tell if the normality is permanent or a short term coincidence. Fingers crossed Regards Dave.

[Argus]

[snip] However, when clicking on the left arrow in System Restore it will not index back to the previous month. Any ideas one and all?

How did you try to navigate? Left arrow in the calendar control to the left; or, left arrow in the list to the right?

It's possible that SR has purged all Restore points (RPs) from previous months, but is also possible that you are trying to navigate between them from the list to the right.

Sometimes the calendar may show some days of the previous month, and even if there are RPs they are not shown, one have to navigate to that month.

I can't test this at the moment, since I don't have SR running on my XP system, and even if I would enable SR we would have to wait a couple of days, next month, for me to confirm this... Anyhow, I think SR won't navigate between RPs in the list of RPs if the earlier one is from another month. So, use the calendar.

System Restore Only Bolds Dates in the Calendar Where Restore Points Exist for the Selected Month

To resolve this behavior, navigate to a previous or subsequent month using the calendar control to view restore points for that month. The calendar control displays days that are associated with other months in light gray font.

That said, SR isn't meant to be used in a case like this; there are other things to try first. If, for example, some software isn't working, or, is slowing down the computer, then one should uninstall that software, and try finding software that match the hardware etc. And even if using SR, one should uninstall software that has been installed after the RP was created. Better look at hardware and software rather than RPs.

[Dave Davison]

Thanks for the remarks Argus, The left arrow I refer to is the one in the left side box but it refuses to show March calendar, perhaps as was stated, if there were no restore points determined in that month that accounts for it not showing it. Maybe I will get into the habit of creating such dates regularly then I can ascertain if this is the case. Dave.

[Argus]

Thanks for the remarks Argus, The left arrow I refer to is the one in the left side box but it refuses to show March calendar [...]

One never knows; I've seen people ask that question before, and there is a KB article, so... No, then it seems like you have no older than the current month, or perhaps not even that.

Maybe I will get into the habit of creating such dates regularly then I can ascertain if this is the case.

Before you go on that route perhaps you should make sure that SR is working. There should be RPs created automatically, around every 24 hour, unless you never leave the PC idle on minute, and shut down as soon as you have finished your work.

So, even if you somehow lost the ones in March, if everything is working you should have seen RPs from this month, but in the OP you said:

My next thought was to run a System Restore only to discover that - because I had not created one this month - I would go back to March.

So, it isn't creating RPs as it should, it seems.

One way could be to purge all RPs, i.e. disable and enable SR to start fresh; check that it's running on the system partition; create a test RP and then try to restore to that RP, and if everything is working use the undo-RP (created automatically) to go back. Or, if you don't want to remove the RPs you have, skip the first step.

Also, perhaps you should check the space allocated for RPs, if set too low, it might run out of space and remove the oldest RPs "too soon" (though I think the default value is around 10-12% and with the size of today's system partitions that can hold quite many RPs). No matter the size, if they are older than 90 days they will be purged automatically. Not that interesting since really old RPs are often quite useless, given that a restore will change all things monitored.

[Dave Davison]

Hi Argus.....seems the SR is working OK as I have created one on each of the last two days and they appear in bold type which I understand indicates they are active. As for space allocated for S/R points I haven't a clue how to check what it is or change it, not something I have ever needed to do. Regards Dave.