Creates Restore Points but doesnt save them

[labayou]

Upgraded W-XP64 to W7HP64 in August. Machine was set up with 3 hard drives in Nvidia RAID as a STRIPE.
Installed a game that actually installed ok but gave BSOD. Went into safe mode and removed the game and system is working fine. I ran MSE and MBAM with nothing but tracking cookies found. Then I created a restore point but noticed that there were no others. So I rebooted and created another one. System still saying there are no restore points. So I ran CMD as admin and ran VSSADMIN LIST SHADOWS which came back "no items found that safisty the query". I can create restore points but they are not being saved by the system. I increased the size of the 30 to 65GB, rebooted and created another restore point, which also did not get saved. I've read about dual boot problems with XP, but that is not the case as I UPGRADED to W7 OVER XP...over the 3 drives.
Does RAID prevent the system from saving restore points? If that's the case why is it letting me create them in the first place?

 

[marsmimar]

Hello labayou and welcome to Seven Forums.

The first thing I'd do is check for malware. In addition to running a full scan with your anti-virus suite of choice, I'd also run a couple of free on-demand scanners because no anti-malware product is 100% effective 100% of the time. (If there was such a thing we'd all be using it.) Some of the recommended scanners are:

Malwarebytes

ESET Online Scanner

SuperAntispyware

HitmanPro

I would next check for damaged or corrupt system files by running a system file checker scan from an elevated command prompt (option two.) If problems are found, run the scan 3 times and reboot your computer after each scan.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

If still having issues, this article has several more things to check:

What To Do About Missing Windows 7 Restore Points « IT Expert Voice

 

[labayou]

Thank you for your help. MSE is Microsoft Security Essentials and MBAM is Malwarebytes. And I have run SuperAntispyware and HiJackThis on this machine with only the tracking cookies found. SFC found nothing, CheckDisc at restart found nothing.
I still think it has something to do with hardware Raid. Nvidia manages the Raid which is STRIPE not mirroring and maybe with the files spread over 3 hard drives System Restore cannot put it together. The very first attempt to create a restore point resulted in the 0x80042308 error which has something to do with Shadow Copy. I'm not exactly WHAT but after reading other queries here and other sites I think that's right. Volsnap, too, reports events having to do with I/O on C drive. I dont understand that. I'm going to read the link you provided about Missing W7 Restore Points and post back after jumping thru any hoops that link provides. Thanks.

 

[labayou]

Well nothing changed after following those instructions. I give up. Been at this for a couple days and it's not worth more time. I know if there is a problem then reinstalling W7 will be the only option, no need to do it now just to get restore points. Thanks anyway.

 

[marsmimar]

Before doing a clean install (whenever that might be) you could always try a repair install first. It should preserve your user accounts, data, programs, system drivers, etc. If that doesn't work then maybe a clean install would be the best option.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

 

[labayou]

I hope I dont have to do either. The raid on this big machine is a mess and unnecessary in the first place but wouldnt power on without it. It's getting old. (Dell XPS 700). I certainly will try a repair if there are problems with it again. His brought it to me to fix a BSOD due to a problem printer, not really the computer at all as it turns out. But still while checking it out I found the system restore problem. Thanks for your help.

 

[whs]

See whether you have any scheduled task running against your disk that runs at boot time. Easiest to check with the schtasks /query command.

 

[labayou]

I already gave him back his computer and he's not very literate. I'm not going to worry about it. I still think it has something to do with the RAID. If it messes up again he'll probably buy a new one.
Thanks anyway.
la-bayou

 

[whs]

In any case, for the future, it is a lot better to make images to an external drive rather than relying on the restore points. Those can disappear for a variety of reasons.

 

[labayou]

I agree. Unfortunately this isnt my computer. There's nothing stored on it at all it's just used for internet. Silly to have Raid but I couldnt get Windows to install without it (last year).
Anyway, thank you for your suggestions.