System Restore points disappearing

I think I have no other option. As soon I have som more free time I will do so and keep you posted. A lot of work is coming along ...

Thanks mate, we'll be here, join us when you're able.

Hi Barefoot,

I finally managed to come back to you. I am delighted to announce you that the problem is solved with the fresh install of Win 7 on an erased and formatted HDD. I am working further on this base and reinstalled all my applications securing them with a full image backup. Call closed so far.

Nevertheless as I am curious to know what happened I did it all over again
restarting from Win XP sp3 and installing win 7. This time I followed strictly the instructions from the installation guide provided by Microsoft: custom install of win 7 over win XP with Microsoft easy transfer tool and windows.old directory.

What I expected arrived: after the first reboot of the installed Win 7 smash, all RP's disappeared. See the volsnap errors in the Eventlog extracts attached.

At that moment not a single user setting nor object of Win XP was recovered. The windows.old file was even not touched. No application nor driver update was installed. Really in the earliest stage the default already existed. It's not a matter of settings nor applications, there must be somewhere a glitch in the installation.

Playing with the VSSMaxsize around 50GB I was able to keep the RP's. Beneeth they were systematically deleted. Just the same as before. (60GB free)

I can't see what is going wrong during the installation. What is different to the clean install is the second small partition that the Win 7 installation software creates when formatting the disk: Called "system partition", invisible during normal operation. There is no such partition when upgrading from win Xp. I presume it is not absolutely necessary to have two partitions to make it work.

I noticed another difference. Is it possible that the installation process forces a dual boot without informing the user? I did not ask for a dual boot nor did I something to install it but at startup I always receive a "Windows Boot Manager" screen where one can choose between "Earlier versions of windows" - "Windows 7" (highlighted) or "Windows XP recovery console". In the clean install I don't see that screen. It is a kind of a dual boot screen. What is the purpose of that choice. Anyway as I never used that option it can't interfer.

So don't you think it would be usefull to tell this to the Microsoft Specialists.

Thank you very much for your support, Bare Foot and all the best to all of you !!

Hello again Fdc.


Can you post a snip of the drive map from "Disk Management"? In the Start Menu, right click Computer, select Manage, then upper left pane click Disk Management I'm curious about something; I'll post mine below to give you an idea.

Here is mine:

And you're getting a boot menu at startup?

Something silirar to this as the first screen you see when you first start the PC?
(you turn on the PC and get that)

Exactly ... That's the screen I get. It seems like multi boot with the Memory test at the bottom.

Do you have another HDD to save the files you don't want to lose to?

What type of Windows 7 do you have, "Retail" or Upgrade"?

I have the OEM upgrade installation disk, Windows 7 home premium.
I can backup my files to another comp on my home network.
My startup screen layout is as follows :

Windows Boot Manager

Choose an operating system:
- Earlier versions of windows
- Windows 7" (highlighted)
- Windows XP recovery console.

Seconds tic tac

Tools:
Windows memory diagnostic

I'm sure you are probably getting tired of installs; you don't have to install XP first to do an "upgrade" to Windows 7, I feel that's causing you untold problems; have a good look at the tutorial at the link below.

Let me say this, choose the drive options / format option during the install; BE AWARE: if you do this that you have all your important data backed up to an external HDD as it will be lost if you don't.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31402-clean-install-upgrade-windows-7-version.html

No problem Bare Foot, I did that already. I followed the clean install tutorial you suggested and I have made an image backup of the working Win7 installation. I can restore it whenever I want and continue on that base. See my previous post. In fact I have no more issues. I just wanted to bring your attention to the upgrade installation from win XP to Win7 and the SR problems occuring.

At least we have something sorted out, thanks for the update!

Thank you very much for your support, Bare Foot and all the best to you and the team.

Thanks mate, we're glad we could help.