Windows 7: Shadow Copies - Delete

Danny,

Sorry about the late reply. Yes, CCleaner will make it easier to delete restore points from a system image. The one I have below is displayed as "Windows Backup", but it I had only created a separate system image and never a normal backup.

Thats odd my "system image restore points" don't show up in ccleaners list. The problem I had was I had 17 of these system image restore points in there at 1 point some from months ago some where the image had already been manually deleted. I have my data backup on a separate external partition to my images so they don't show in the manage back up space option because obviously that's pointing the data back up partition.
I had a play with this the other day and the only way I could remove them was to change my backup settings and direct them to the system image partition, which forced a backup to run which I quickly cancelled.Then I renamed my images one at a time back to the default name, and they showed up in the manage space section so they could be deleted that way which in turn removed each restore point entry.The problem is when I redirected the backup back to my data backup partition the damn thing wanted to do another full backup so it was ages backing up 200+ gigs worth of data.
There has to be another way to remove them.I know there harmless just sat there but its damned annoying when you know their there.



Danny

Redirecting or renaming the WindowsImageBackup folder for them may have been why.

mmmmmm didn't think of that just running one now see if that shows up.

Thanks Shawn

thanks brink, i actually replyed in the wrong place.. pilot error lol

killer tutorial though, imma look for the rep button for you

LOL, you're welcome. Thank you.

Yeah as you found already danny System Image Restore Points Backups can be found and [obliterated] via wbadmin as I recently posted here.

Too many different terms to search on--I didn't find-out about ccleaner until you told me by PM, thanks!

I find these "shadow copies" to be a complete mystery myself. Further, I wonder about any utility that promises to remove intermediate System Restore points like CCleaner. Isn't it the case that each of these Restore points is dependent on every other, or at least the prior-and-after? Is there a clear explanation somewhere of exactly how these work?

I frankly can become lost w/SR points e.g. what if you restore to a 10-day old SR point and then decide to try a 2-day old. Makes me dizzy to think about it!

What happens if I have restore points on disk C and delete one? for example:
restore point 1 : date 1 jan
restore point 2 : date 2 jan
restore point 3 : date 3 jan
restore point 4 : date 4 jan
restore point 5 : date 5 jan

All restore points are incremental changes (on block level) AFAIK. If I delete restore point 3 and 4, system restore to restore point 1 and 2 is impossible. Unless restore point 3 and 4 merges to restore point 2 automatically.

Is this how it works?

If you restore to "10-day old SR point" this is actually sort of installation and a new restore point will be created. You can rollback to this restore point and your back to day 0. or rollback to any other restore points. If you perform a system restore from "safe mode", recovery disk, recovery environment a new restore point will NOT be created! But all changes will be included in the most recent restore point

Hello Kaktussoft,

This tutorial is about shadow copies instead of specific restore points. For restore points, you could use the tutorial below to delete them instead. I like OPTION FOUR in the tutorial below best since you could also use it to mount the restore point to see what's in it before deleting it.

System Protection Restore Points - Delete