XP System Restore no longer works

I had some slight problems a few days ago, and went to use the System Restore. When I click on it I get the hourglass very breifly and then nothing. It shows that it is not disabled.
I did have a browser hijack recently. Could they have disabled it somehow? I would appreciate some ideas on what I should check. Thanks, DMC

 

Does Help and Support Work?

Search?

msinfo32?

What OS is this......

 

Help and support work, except s/r
search/find works
XP Home

 

The hijacker you had could be in the restore file. I am not an XP user, but I have read about people having problems with that. When they restore the system, it also restores any spyware/malware/trojan/virus/etc... The solution offered was to disable system restore. I guess this deletes the previous restore file. XP users, is that what happens? After you're clean, then enable it to have a clean backup.

Try these to prevent future hijacks/spyware, http://majorgeeks.com/download2859.html,
http://majorgeeks.com/download506.html

 

Me too

I have the exact same problem on my HP Pavillion witth XP Home. It has been this way for months now. I have no idea what made it stop working.

I try to resore, it has the hourglass, and then nothing. I look at the restore record and it says there was a restore operation. If I hit "NEXT" more than once, it will show a "restore operation" for every time I attempted to do a restore.

I actually brought the issue up with the manufacturer's support but the guy had no clue and I haven't asked since.

 

Just a thought

Do either of you guys use Norton System works? I had the exact same problem on my Win ME machine and Norton was the culprit !! Just a thought....

 

I only have Norton Anti-Virus and that will be history when the subscription runs out.

 

can you access system restore from safe mode, if you can try disabling, rebooting and then try re-enabling

If not try disabling it through your services,
Start-run-type services.msc--enter
Reboot and re-enable

 

And me too

In my case, the system's Tech Support told me to do a clean reinstallation of my XP Home OS, so clearly they had no idea why it happened either--and that on a 2 week old machine!

 

I've done a reinstall of XP

The thing is that I had another problem that required a non-destructive reinstall of XP and the problem did not go away after that was done. I had high hopes it would be solved but it wasn't.

 

I tried it in Safe Mode as Administrator and as Owner to no avail.

The Services are as follows:

It says that the System Restore Service is Started and that it starts automatically.

It also states that it depends on Remote Procedure Call (RPC) which is also started.

I manulally started Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator as well, just in case.

I'll try the restore again now.

 

Did you try disabling it then rebooting from services

can you access it from a command prompt
Start-run-type cmd-enter
at the prompt type this(or copy and paste it)
cd c:\windows\system32\restore
then at the next prompt type
rstrui

 

Well, it seemed like something was happening for a while and the screen now ststes that a restore operation was started at 2:12:37 PM It is now 2:54 and it is still stuck.

I will move on to the next suggestion.

Thanks for the help.

 

OK so I'm guessing that happened at the prompt yes

So did you try disabling the service then rebooting, this will have the effect of clearing out all your restore points and cleaning up the folders
restore points are notorious for causing problems especially if theres a build up of them

 

That would explain why I have no restore points now. I'll try it again in a few days.

Thanks.

 

But does this solve the original problem, can you now access system restore or does it still hang with the hourglass showing?

 

Weeeeelllll, .... no.

I tried it just now and, although it did the usual bit of recording the fact that a restore operation was attempted, no restore operation actually occured. It did the hourglass, etc., but nothing happened and the unit didn't reboot.

So I am back to square one but with fewer restore points that I cannot get back to anyway.

 

Well i assume you can access the console,which was the original problem but the restore points are not working
Heres a good troubleshooter from Microsoft go through this
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pr...n/faqsrwxp.mspx#XSLTfaqSection122122121120120

 

Besides not knowing what I'm doing, what I'm looking at, or what to do next I'm doing great.

I checked the file at MS and followed the instructions. The partitions have sufficient drive space.

I looked at the event viewer -- and looked -- and looked and still don't know what I'm looking at or what I'm looking for.

I deleted some files and programs I don't use last night and the unit created restore points. So that seems to be working.

Then there is this in the Q&A:

But they don't tell you what to do or what types of files these might be. They don't tell you what they mean by "suspend" or if restarting the System Restore unsuspends it; which it apparently doesn't.

I checked that the System Restore is running and it is.

This is starting to seem like an unworthy excercise in futility. If the damned thing has as many bugs as their troubleshooting guide seems to suggest, it might be better done without.