What to do if system restore point in Windows XP?

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Run out of disk space

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Manually turn System Restore off

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Reinstall Windows XP or update Windows Me to Windows XP

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Clean System Restore via Disk Clearup

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Restore point reaches expiration date

Article ID

301224

Last Review

May 7, 2007

Subject

System Restore "restore points" are missing or deleted

Link

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/301224

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Run out of disk space

Users run out of disk space on the system drive or on any one of the available non-system drives, and System Restore stops responding and stops monitoring the system.

Remark
If users run out of disk space on the system drive, and receive a warning about running low in disk space.

The system will delete all restore points in an attempt to free up disk space.
In this case, when sufficient disk space is freed, System Restore starts to monitor the system again.
At this point, it creates an automatic System Checkpoint.

In addition, when the disk space is not sufficient and System Restore does not stop responding, the system will delete some system restore points.

Note:
If users have a multiple-partition computer with a drive that has almost no free space, this drive may cause System Restore to stop responding all across the system and to delete restore points.

However, this only occurs if users have reached the minimum disk space that is allowed and if the following operations are carried out on monitored file types.

       Upgrading, uninstalling or installing programs

       Moving, and deleting or renaming files

If drive has almost no free space but users only perform operations on non-monitored files, System Restore does not stop responding.

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Manually turn System Restore off

       Manually turn System Restore off on any system drive

If users manually turn off System Restore on the system drive, all restore points are deleted, and users will receive the following warning message.

Message：
You have chosen to turn off System Restore.
If you continue, all existing restore points will be deleted, and you will not be able to track and undo changes to your computer.
Do you want to turn off System Restore?

       Manually turn System Restore off on any non-system drive

If users manually turn off System Restore on any non-system drive, all restore points on that specific drive are deleted, and users receive the following warning message.

Message：
You have chosen to turn off System Restore on this drive.
If you continue, you will not be able to track or undo harmful changes on this drive.
Do you want to turn off System Restore on this drive?

When users turn System Restore on again on the system drive, it immediately creates a System Checkpoint.
When users turn on System Restore again on a non-system drive, it does not immediately create a restore point on that drive, but monitoring resumes immediately on the drive.

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Reinstall XP or update Windows Me to Windows XP

After users run the Setup program, System Checkpoint has to be run,
but the restore points under the previous operating system are gone.
Windows does not allow users to return to an older version of the Operating System using System Restore.

Note:
When upgrade, users might still see some restore point files and folders in the C：\System Volume Information in Windows XP or under the C：\_RESTORE folder in Windows Millennium Edition.
However, these restore points are obsolete and cannot be used.
They do not appear on the Select a Restore Point list on the System Restore page.

Users can delete obsolete system restore points via Disk Cleanup.
Click the Disk Cleanup tab, a System Restore: Obsolete Data Stores entry is available.
Please refer to the steps below.■Please refer to How to delete obsolete data?


After Disk Cleanup utility, the restore points are missing in C：\System Volume Information folders of Windows XP or in C：\_RESTORE folders of Windows Me.

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Clean up System Restore via Disk Cleanup

When start the Disk Cleanup utility, all restore points (except the most recent one) are deleted.
Please refer to the information below to run Disk Cleanup.

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Restore point reaches expiration date

A restore point reaches an age of 90 days. The restore point is then deleted because 90 days is the default time to live.