How I permantly disable System Restore feature on external USB HDDs?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ant
  • Start date Start date
A

Ant

I connect and disconnect my external USB HDDs a lot in Windows XP.
System Restore point feature loves to re-enable itself on these drives
even after I disable it. Is there a way to keep it disabled forever for
these drives?

Thank you in advance. :)
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Ant said:
I connect and disconnect my external USB HDDs a lot in Windows XP.
System Restore point feature loves to re-enable itself on these drives
even after I disable it. Is there a way to keep it disabled forever for
these drives?

Thank you in advance. :)
Click to expand...

I have exactly the same problem, and I'm also looking for the answer.

John
 
John said:
I have exactly the same problem, and I'm also looking for the answer.

John
Click to expand...
My observation so far has been that System Restore only enables restore
on the removeable drive if it was connected and turned on when the
system was booted.
 
Right-Click on My Computer and click on Properties.
Click on the System Restore TAB
For each drive click on the 'Settings" button to manage each drive.
The best thing to do is to disable all drives except the C Drive.
 
DonnyJ, that won't work because that is how my systems are set up.
Unplugging and reconnecting makes System Restore enabled for that drive. :(


Right-Click on My Computer and click on Properties.
Click on the System Restore TAB
For each drive click on the 'Settings" button to manage each drive.
The best thing to do is to disable all drives except the C Drive.


:
Click to expand...
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I guess until I find a better solution you will need to completely disable
system restore.
Right-Click on My Computer and click on Properties.
Click on the System Restore TAB
Click on check box that says "Turn off System Restore on all drives"

If you need some sort of restore mabe you could try Norton GoBack.
 
I guess until I find a better solution you will need to completely disable
system restore.
Right-Click on My Computer and click on Properties.

Click on the System Restore TAB
Click on check box that says "Turn off System Restore on all drives"
Click to expand...

Yeah. I only have system restore point enabled for C: drive. Oh well.
hopefully, Vista fixed this problem.

If you need some sort of restore mabe you could try Norton GoBack.
Click to expand...

Eww, no thanks. I only need System Restore for emergency like I trashed
the registry or something. :)
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John said:
My observation so far has been that System Restore only enables restore
on the removeable drive if it was connected and turned on when the
system was booted.
Click to expand...
I have seen observed that this is incorrect. I can boot up the system
with the backup drive turned off, then turn it on, and while system
restore doesn't start monitoring the external drive immediately, it does
after awhile. It sure seems like there ought to be a setting in the
registry that would tell system restore to ignore this drive permanently!

John
 
John said:
I have seen observed that this is incorrect. I can boot up the system
with the backup drive turned off, then turn it on, and while system
restore doesn't start monitoring the external drive immediately, it
does after awhile. It sure seems like there ought to be a setting in
the registry that would tell system restore to ignore this drive
permanently!
Click to expand...

Unfortunately this was how System Restore was designed.

A possible work around is to assign a permanent drive letter to the
external drive via Disk Management. To access Disk Management, go to
Start - Run and type diskmgmt.msc then press enter.

Right-click a partition, logical drive, or volume, and then click Change
Drive Letter and Paths.
Do one of the following:
1. To assign a drive letter, click Add, click the drive letter you want
to use, and then click OK.
2. To modify a drive letter, click it, click Change, click the drive
letter you want to use, and then click OK.

Reboot the system. Open System Restore and stop monitoring that drive.
This should keep System Restore from monitoring that drive, but not
always.
 
Bert said:
Unfortunately this was how System Restore was designed.

A possible work around is to assign a permanent drive letter to the
external drive via Disk Management. To access Disk Management, go to
Start - Run and type diskmgmt.msc then press enter.

Right-click a partition, logical drive, or volume, and then click Change
Drive Letter and Paths.
Do one of the following:
1. To assign a drive letter, click Add, click the drive letter you want
to use, and then click OK.
2. To modify a drive letter, click it, click Change, click the drive
letter you want to use, and then click OK.

Reboot the system. Open System Restore and stop monitoring that drive.
This should keep System Restore from monitoring that drive, but not
always.
Click to expand...
I think this would work if I left the external drive on all the time and
connected to the same computer. But I have several computers, and I move
the external drive around depending on what I need to use it for.

John
 
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