XP Problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Octavio Morales
  • Start date Start date
O

Octavio Morales

Have lost all of my settings,pictures,mail prior to
8/8/2003 ect.When i tried to restore to previous restore
point and the computer re boots and the message
is "computer is not able to restore to previous date"
this happens thougt the RESTORE setting ii able.

Any help?
Thanks
 
First, System Restore is not a substitute for backup. SR is only meant to
restore system settings and bring you system back to the state it was in at
a specific time. Thus, even had System Restore worked, it likely would not
have restored missing mail and photos.

While I can likely fix the problem with System Restore, it won't bring back
the mail and photos, only a restore from a recent backup can do that. You
can try to do search for the pictures by running a search for the file type
in Explorer. For example, if the photos were jpeg, open Windows Explorer,
click Search and use jpeg as your search criteria and search all your
drives; you might find your photos among them. Mail's not so easy and not
knowing your mail program it's difficult to comment but if you don't find
the mail within your e-mail application, it's likely they are gone.

Before doing anything else, you might want to make sure your antivirus
software is up to date with the latest definitions and then run a virus.

The problem you had with System Restore is usually resolved by turning off
System Restore, rebooting, turning it on and again rebooting. Note: this
procedure will delete all your previous restore points but since you are
unable to restore at the moment, those points are useless to you anyway. If
your system is clear of viruses, open Control Panel, go to System, go to
the System Restore tab and remove the check from "Enable System Restore" on
this drive, reboot, return to the same area place a check next to enable
System Restore on this drive and reboot. Then create a manual restore point
and see if you can restore to that point, if yes, that problem is resolved.

As to the rest, I can only quote the third line of my signature, "Backup is
a PC User's Best Friend.' Without it, perhaps only a data recovery
specialist can recover what you've lost. If interested, check the backs of
computer magazines for ads for data recovery.
 
Is there a major problem with Windows as this happened to
me and I know of about 5 poeple that have reported this.
 
Most of the time, when a user loses their settings it is due to the user ID
becoming corrupt. If the settings are gone, they may not see some of their
files as XP will sometimes to create a temporary user ID for that user in
order that they may continue to log in. There is a procedure for recovering
files and settings from a corrupt user ID as outlined in the following
Knowledge Base Article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q318011

Sometimes System Restore can cause some file loss if the files or recent
downloads are not in the My Documents folder as System Restore does not
touch that folder but might misread the files if they are located elsewhere
but the only way e-mail would be "lost" is if the ID had become corrupted
and they placed in that temporary ID I mentioned.

That said, the OP stated that System Restore had failed, thus there should
have been no changes.
 
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