Windows 10: Restore Points

On further review.
A question about the Disk Management Screen.

C we know about.
E, F, J and M I created.

What are the two partitions before C?
The partition between C and F?
The partition after M?

Are these weird created in error partitions.

Is that what you were talking about too many partitions?

Don Cole

 

Lots to cover I see. *Smile

You’re welcome. I see you do indeed have digital entitlement. That’s good.

May I ask what these are for?

I see the first 4 untitled/not letter ones are empty.

Do what you like, of course, but like I said 10 should run great on your machine. Much better OS IMO. You stated you don't have 8/8.1 keys > If you want to revert back to a fresh OEM 8/8.1 we need to get to that partition. Hopefully so.

Understandable. The free upgrade was needed to gain the digital entitlement. After that most of us here do a fresh install. Upgrades so often drag along broken software with it.

Yes, if the windows.old folder still exists. Look in C: within File Explorer (WinKey/E). Then you can roll back to the previous OS.

Personally that’s just one of the reasons why I shy from 3rd party software. The native Windows recovery disk image works well.

That’s what I’m afraid of. *Wink *Biggrin

Did you title these and (C) with the triple letters? This concerns me.

Don’t know. I think H (exFat) is your OEM recovery partition.

Please expand the “Status” category by grabbing the line right of that until all is seen in it and repost the screenshot.

Sorry, but I think they’re all weird.

Yes. Simply too many. I can maybe understand creating one for some file backup, but that should be done with an exterior drive such as a USB thumb. Windows will create C: and it's own recovery partition. If there is an OEM partition, then that will remain also.

Tony aka HG

 

"Don’t know. I think H (exFat) is your OEM recovery partition."
What does OEM mean?
I'm using the H USB only to back up programs that I am working on. As far as recovery, that's what I'm trying to set up now.

What do you mean by,
"Please expand the “Status” category by grabbing the line right of that until all is seen in it and repost the screenshot."

Grabbing the line right of what?

By the way,

And finally how did you break my quote up into several sections.

I tried to do that in my last post. But could only get one big, whole quote.

Don Cole

 

We need the columns to be wide enough to read what they contain. It's explained in step 3 of this tutorial.
Disk Management - How to Post a Screenshot of

From what little we can see in your first screenshot, one of the unnamed partitions may be your EFI partition - it would be very bad to delete that. With a better screenshot we could confirm that.

By putting in a [/QUOTE] tag at the end of the first bit you want to quote, then extra

 

Hi there @doncole

I see you explained H is a USB thumb drive. That’s good cuz that concerned me. If ever you are installing Windows please remove/eject it from your system. Some say that it’s not necessary to use the eject process in the Taskbar’s system tray, but I’ve ruined/locked up a few thumb drives by not doing so.

Please follow Bree’s answers. He explained them well.

OEM is an acronym for Original Equipment Manufacturer. (your PC or motherboard manufacturer)

The only thing I can add at this point is that there is a FAQ link at the bottom left of the top header of each forum page, but you won’t find what Bree explained other than general info about quoting. The boxes are known as “text editor boxes”. Think of them as a document creator. There is the standard you see on a page and an “Advanced” one you can use for more editing controls. You can enlarge/expand the box by grabbing the arrow head at the lower right bottom.

FAQ > Reading and Posting Messages.

The search in FAQ is a quick way to find a subject/item you’re looking for.

 

@doncole

Whether you use our methods/advice or not, please report back how it went.

 

I read in one the tutorials that System Restore was not very reliable. They said a USB backup drive was better. And the best way to make it was Macrium Reflect. I can use System Restore for any new upgrades.
I used System Restore in safe mode successfully. While trying figure out how I did it I got side tracked into Macrium Reflect. I download it and lost my Restore Points. I have less than 30 days to make the disk with Macrium Reflect. I'm not going to pay them $125. What Size disk should I get? What do mean by "the native Windows recovery disk image"? Do you need Macrium Reflect to make it?

Are saying those two partitions before C: don't belong there?

I'm going study this situation some more. I won't change any partitions until I get back to you.

Don Cole

 

Restore points and system imaging (native or 3rd party like Macrium) aren't the same. "Native" in this context means "included as standard in Windows operating system" so you don't have to buy or install anything. "3rd party" means not made by Microsoft so you have to download and install (and possibly pay for) someone else's program.

A system image saves everything so you can restore and everything will be back to how it was including all your files and documents. For example if your disk drive broke (or your computer) you could get everything back as of the time you made it. Any changes you made or files you added since you made the backup will be lost if you restore it.

Windows system image has been fine for me although it is slower and more inconvenient to use than other options. Macrium which is free (for most use cases) also works fine and is favored by lots of people. Don't buy the paid version yet. The free version will make a perfectly good system image that you can use to restore your system in case of failure. The paid version has features (like backing up certain folders or differential images) that you probably don't need to start with.

You can (if you want) make both a Windows system image and a macrium image. You can also make copies on various disks and give them to your neighbors or friends in case your house burns down. Only you can decide how important your data is to you.

I've recently moved from Macrium to Acronis as it is faster and makes smaller images than Macrium but each to their own. It depends what features you want and what interface you like. They all work fine - just pick one, make a backup and test you can restore it. Then put a copy somewhere safe.

Restore points are a separate thing. They don't hold an snapshot of your whole system. They store a small subset of (generally system related) files. You can revert to a restore point and it will backout changes you have made to settings or upgrades you have made while leaving your user files intact. You can also use them to revert to a previous version of a certain file. They have a place (probably historical) but you can't use them to recreate your system in case of a disk failure. Note that after version releases Windows 10 deletes all restore points and they are disabled by default. I leave system restore turned on but apart from testing I've not actually used system restore since Windows 7.

Hope that helps a bit.

 

Please expand the status column. We can’t comment on partitions until we see that.

To add to Ix07 post, which has great info. You may not have given System Protection enough space for restore points, so it deletes them as needed for more space on the disk. There's a slide in there to adjust for more gigs if need be.

 

A fair guess as to why it may be slow is you've very little spare space on your C: (8Gb I think). That relates to your choices on partitioning your system drive.

This could result in a lot of time spent moving things back and forth between your page file on your system disk and memory, for example.

Also doesn't give you room for manoeuvre on allocating space for restore points, or enough space for upgrading (when e.g. Windows.old is created).

 

How much free space do I need? I've got it up to 18.2GBs free space and it's still slow.
Forget Restore Points I already lost the Restore Points that I needed.

Don Cole

 

I read the tutorial and still can 't figure out how to make them wider.

Also if I make a disk using Macrium Reflect what size disk do I need?

Do Cole

 

That's better (remember your video card will probably take some of your RAM). Please post a screenshot of your task manager, with any column of interest organised high to low by clicking on the relevant tab.

 

hhh vvVv

 

Task manager please - like this:




If there is significant CPU or disk use, please do a clean boot and repeat.
Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 10 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials
Part 1