System Restore - Cant Restore!

[DarkDavil]

Hey erm... i have a wierd-little problem. I installed RocketDock.. and i put some icons on it, but then because some of those icons didn't display correctly, i wanted to pull them off, so i tried to pull them off, and they "disappeared" in a could of smoke.. lol

And then i tried to find all the icons that i had "disappeared" off-of my rocket-dock. So i found all of my icons all but 1... and that is HP Update, i tried to install HP update back on my computer via their website, but it said that i had a newer version of the soft-ware on my computer and then it quit installation.

So... i cant my hp update file or anything!! and i dont have their icon. So i then tried to system-restore.. i picked a point at which i DIDNT have rocket dock. And it does the restore, and when i logg-back on, it says that it failed, and that i should try a different restore point, which i did, 2 times, and both failed.

Any idea why?
And any help with finding my HP Update icon ^^/File?
How to fix system Restore?
Should i do a "Recovery" via recovery manager, and totally re-format my laptop?
Thanks for help :D

 

[kword88]

if memory serves me correctly (which is questionable), i read somewhere that a system restore will fail if there is not enough free hard drive space (something like 300MB). try doing a system cleanup and defrag, then try to restore again. careful not to delete your restore points during cleanup.

 

[DarkDavil]

I've tried it out, and it worked Thanks man ^^ Rep for you :D

 

[whs]

1. What you have in Rocket Dock and is possibly missing are shortcuts - not the programs. Go into C: > Program Files and make a new shortcut from the .exe of the missing program. I am sure you will find the HP Update there.
2. System restore is a very capricious function. Even in the best of cases it fails sometimes. That can have a lot of causes. I would recommend you clear your shadowstorage (the area where the restore points are kept) and start anew. That will not help you for a current system restore, but you start with a clean slate and may have more luck another time.
To clean your shadowstorage go to Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Backup and Restore center > then in the left pane to "Create a Restore point or change Settings" > System Protection Tab (and wait a minute) > uncheck the box in front of OS (C) (System) > Apply > then recheck that box > Apply. Now you deleted all restore points, reactivated the writing of restore points and you can immediately write a new one with "Create" in the same little window.

PS: 300MB is the minimum amount of shadowstorage you need, but normally it is up to 15% of your C: partition. But I would not get into that. I once made a video tutorial for another purpose, but you can get some insight into shadowstorage and it's usefulness if you watch it: Tutorial: Recover lost files with Shadow Explorer « How-To Geek Forums