Should System Resore be creating system checkpoints

I've had my ACER 3022wlmi notebook a week now and have been testing everything worked, customising XP to look how wanted it to etc, ok before installing any new software. I created a disk image to DVD and thought i would create a manaual restore point in system restore.

In System Restore i noticed that no other restore points had been created at all. I was under the impression that XP would

• Create an 'Initial System Checkpoint' when the machine was first booted up
• Create a 'system checkpoint' approx every 24 hours of calendar time (or every 24 hours computer turned on - i must admit it has not been turned on 24 hours yet) even if there were no changes

I have checked the system Restore is monitoring the drives and am concerned that something is wrong, or i have not selected a particular setting. Or, is is something specific to Acer i.e. does it eRecovery software stop Syatem Restore working. Perhaps it is because no new software has been installed yet - but i would have expected daily checkpoints - these occur on my desktop PC.

Any suggestions

 

right click my computer and then clik on properties..then select the system restore tab...and then set the options for it..maybe it was turned off to get more space back on your laptop or something

 

Thanks
I'll check that, although i am 99.9% certain that system Restore has been running from day 1.

What about disabling it, and then re-enabling ?

I have quite a lot of software to load now - perhaps that will make it create a restore point.

I was just concerned that it is not doing any daily checkpoints.

 

I personally disbale System Restore as it slows system performance. After I wipe the hard drive and do a clean install, I use Acronis True Image to make a backup of the hard drive. Then I can restore it at any time.

 

I don't really have much experience woth XP. I am used to using win98 and i often used ghost to do a disc image to my slave drive in my desktop.

However my Acer notebook has me a little confused with its hidden partition,& 2 FAT32 partitions which cannot be changed to NFTS because Acer eRecovery will not function. I need to come up with a backup strategy that will not fail.

I do not have the knowledge or confidence to do anything other than rely on System Restore, but have a simple question

Can i convert both partitions to NFTS
Ghost a partition to my DVD drive

Will i then be able to restore from the DVD ghost image without touching the Acer eRecovery software ( i don't care about the hidden partition staying on)

If this proved unsuccessful, would i still be able to restore from the hidden partition even though the C partition had changed to NFTS. It wouldn't be a problem if it reverted back to FAT32 - my only worry is that Acer eRecovery would not restore to a NFTS partition.

I am literally scared to do anything other than leave everything as FAT32 and try to use XP system restore and do the occasional disk image using the eRecovery software.

Thanks

 

XP home on my desktop only creates restore points when software is installed/removed, or after major system changes (repair install, and a system checkpoint once a month). Any other times you must create a point manually.

I think XP pro allows you to set your own schedule, but the options on the "system" tab for xp home are horrible, it does not allow you to set a schedule, only to increase the disk space allowable to SR up to 12%. Perhaps there's some way of doing this with the "scheduled tasks" function, but at a glance, it would seem that it would only run the .exe, opening the prompt for SR options instead of automatically setting a point.

Incidentally, with a 120gb HDD set at 12% (14gb), I still only get about 6 restore points before it starts erasing the oldest ones, so this DOES eat up a lot of HDD space, roughly 2.5gb per point.