Windows 7 - System Protection - Turn On or Off

Thanks Brink,
Your advice to do a back-up first is interesting as that is what I have been trying to achieve for 2 days - but that was either onto the internal HDD or onto a DVD. I can try onto a USB flash drive or onto my external HDD - but I suspect that as the backup in not working for the internal HDD or DVD; it will also not work on the untried options (unless you have got in mind some other type of backup that I am unaware of?

Sorry, you could just manually copy and post the files (ex: pictures, documents, etc......) directly to your USB flash drive or ext HDD.

My Problem is solved. In case what I have found out is of value to other readers; I will summerise my problem and how I solved it.
Neither of my "Create a Restore Point" or my "Backup and Restore" would work. I cured the problem (after 10 days of advice and my own efforts) thus;-
Start - type in "services.msc" - Enter - see long list of services - find "Microsoft Volumn Shadow Copy service" - Right click it and select "Properties" - check that it is not disabled. If it is; change it to "Manual" and Start the Service. Now go further down the list and find "Volumn Shadow Copy service" and set it up in the same way as the "Microsoft" one. Job done - for me anyway!

That's great news. Thank you for posting back with your results.

Hey Brink, I make a system image on the 1st of each month. Since I do this, I have turned off system protection for both my "C" drive, and also "RECOVERY' (whatever that is) too. Bad idea or good since I do the images?

Hello DBone,

It depends on your needs. System Images are great if you needed to restore the complete computer or HDD back to how it was when the image was created.

System Protection includes system restore (restore points) and previous versions (shadow copies). It can be very helpful to say do a quick undo of changes made to system files or a installed program that messed things up without having to restore the whole system with a image.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for the reply! I'm not sure that I would trust the system restore 100% (I'm a bit OCD!) I kind of figure that if something goes that wrong, then I would like to totally undo it with the image. Honestly my computer changes very little from month to month with the exception of program updates. I don't download a lot of programs, and I don't do music or movies. So then it sounds like for me, the system image is the ticket.

Yeah, keeping updated system images is the best protection.

hey thanks so much for your excellent and detailed help. i was fortunate to go on reading similar threads when i found yours. resolved my problem in a snap. keep it up please and God Bless,