Windows 7: Win7 HP 64b system restore doesn't work

First time poster here.



I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. When I try to do a System Restore, it seems to run to completion, reboots the system and then issues the following message:

"System Restore did not complete successfully. Your computer's system files and settings were not changed."

Same result in Safe mode.
Same result with AV disabled. (Kaspersky Internet Security 12)

Advice??

Thanks, Tom

Hello Toadstoll Welcome to the Seven Forums!

Would this be on a custom build where you installed Windows yourself or on an OEM premade system?

The most likely problem you ran into was a bad restore point. That can happen on occasion when you only have one or two depending the time of the month and seeing the older ones automatically being cleaned up.

Every so often a bad point is created where choosing the next older if found would be the next step. That would be the first suggestion to start with by opening the restore option again to see how many points are still seen to try another to go back a little further to see if that goes well on the next try.

Other things like running the System File Checker tool can help with minor problems. But if you are stuck trying to remove a new program tracking down entries in the system registry can be tricky at times for seeing it manually removed.

Greetings.
The computer is four months old, custom built for me by an old close friend who is a non-professional computer expert.
(Background: He's been an expert since the early 80's. He's very busy right now with his business and his life, and even when he is home that's still 1200 miles from me. And, I get tired of pestering him with questions, couldn't solve it myself, so here I am. He tells me I'm "almost a power-user" but I consider my skill level to be one step higher than "advanced beginner.")
I received the computer with Win7HP64 installed. Spent a pleasant week (I'm retired) installing my own software, and getting everything set up just the way I like it. During that week of setting up, I ran one system restore without any trouble. In the four months since, the computer has been a dream. Little problems of course, programs with their conflicts and issues, "easily" solved with google and applied thinking. No problems big enough to merit a system restore, so I have no idea which of the programs I installed (or uninstalled) might have caused the problem, because it was only a few days ago that I attempted a system restore. (Because I just wanted to see how long it takes.)
Beside the steps I outlined in my OP, I did try going all the way back to the earliest restore point (which was about six weeks back). No luck. Interestingly, the computer has no trouble creating new restore points.
I also tried removing Kaspersky IS. Made no difference.
In looking at earlier threads here, I've seen reference to the System File Checker (sfc /scannow), but decided to ask questions first.
I may go ahead and run it a little later this evening.

<over>

When restore points simply won't work when trying several you then have to start suspecting something else at work including a possible malware infection of some type. I would first try turning off the restore feature entirely to see all present points wiped and run a good security sweep of the system.

You may have only seen a bad batch of restore points that simply ended up being corrupted and unusable while this would be one idea to rule out any virus or other bug as the source. The fresh points created llater would then be totally bug free and likely to work.

The SFC tool of course would be used to verify the main files are present and in working order. It does seem to be more of an OS related problem however.

One better option you could have used when everything was working in prime condition would be the creation of a full system image backup where you can recover everything including all programs and device driver installs from one image. Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup

Once you have an image onhand and have any major "oops!" you can simply restore the image to get everything back as it was. That can be a large relief!

I'm just hoping the original 7 install the system came with saw a good install and not simply a partial with most everything but... working as it should. Surprizingly restoring a full image backup doesn't take more then 20-35min. especially when the image is made with nearly 500gb of data on the main drive as the image was about 465gb in size here for one. First you need everything working well however.

This is exactly the kind of information I came here for. I might be a day or two following up the leads, but will return when I have something to report (good or bad). Many thanks!

Okay, after I disabled SR and deleted all RP's:
1) SFC/ SCANNOW reported A-OK.
2) Kaspersky IS found nothing suspicious.
3) Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - same.

It occurred to me that this computer has been performing flawlessly for all of its four months. So far as I can tell, the only thing it can't/won't do is restore an earlier RP. Thinking back, I remember having installation/uninstall problems with two softwares, and they will be my next area of scrutiny. (Roxio Creator 2011, a company whose programs have always given me grief during installation; and MS Digital Image Suite, a 2006 program I love despite its being badly outdated.)
But for now, I'm going to back off and let things be for a while. I'm satisfied that creating System Image Backups will be adequate until I'm ready to go rooting around in the registry.

Thanks for the help.
Tom

Another tool you can try to see if that helps out any would be the Disk Check tool to run a check on the drive for any errors that can clean up for you. You can open command prompt and type in chkdsk /r or right click on the drive itself to bring up the Properties screen>Tools tab and under error checking click the Check now button to schedule a run for the next startup.

With problematic softwares or any hard boots it never hurts to give that a run if it doesn't appear on it's own. On the older versions like XP you would see the ScanDisk tool by that name appear following a hard boot.

Once you know everything is up and running as it should that's the best time to grab an image. Here I use Acronis True Image along with the Windows backup option to grab a good pair. I would rather be safe then sorry later!