Cannot create a system restore point and getting error code: 0x81000202.

Anonymous
2010-11-09T14:21:11+00:00

Original Title: cannot create a system restore point

I have Windows 7 Home premium.

I am unable to create a System Restore point.

I go to Control Panel>System & Security>System>System protection

and get the following error message:

There was an unexpected error in the property page.

The volume shadow copy service used by system restore is not working.

For more information view the event log. (0x81000202).

I have also run a sysscan but all is well.

How can I create a system restore point?

Many thanks

David

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

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Anonymous
2013-02-11T01:55:27+00:00

Using Win7, 64bit. Problem solved, solution, fixed  !!

Since I found a solution, I thought I would do a good thing a post it here. Hopefully it will save someone else a bunch of grief. I don't know how universal my case is.

My system is somewhat unique - the original was modified by changing out the C drive for a SSD, which is much smaller than most drives today (120 GB) I put only Windows on that drive, and as much as possible everything else other places.

This means that there isn't a lot of extra room on the C drive for restore point storage.

Creating a restore point would hang with the message that it couldn't get Volume Shadow Service to work After trying everything I could think of and find to try (which took quite a while) I noticed the following:

The current usage for restore points on the C drive was 12.24GB, the maximum (at 10%) was 11.17. Problem, no?

So.. I cut the max to 5%. Windows told me that it would delete old recovery points - which it did. I then raised the limit back to 10% - now there is available space.

Restore point creation worked fine.

Windows should handle this much better. But Windows should handle lots of things better. In any case my problem is solved - I hope this help you out.

In the past, I deleted all restore points to fix the problem, which I didn't want to do this time. But that would have a similar effect of freeing up space. In the future I will be more careful and monitor this occasionally and manually do the same thing - reduce the available space, lose some older restore points, and then reset.

.

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Anonymous
2013-01-11T00:22:28+00:00

If you have any backup software like totalrecovery pro 9 or norton ghost they will prevent you from creating a manual restore point.  I have total recovery pro 9 and all I do is disable the recovery manager when I want to create a manual restore point.  There is no problem with system created restore points they work fine it is the manual ones that are the problem.

Frank

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Anonymous
2010-11-25T07:44:45+00:00

David

What other entries are logged on or shortly before or shortly after  that entry i.e. within a minute within a minute either way?

What is interesting is that if the service stopped then it must started which is different to it failed to stop.

Sorry for the delay in answering but  I was busy on other things.

Hope this helps, Gerry Cornell

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-11-14T23:59:20+00:00

    Did you knowingly turn System Restore off? Have you had any malware infestation that attacked system utilities?

    Hope this helps, Gerry Cornell

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-11-14T21:37:44+00:00

    I will repeat what I said earlier.

    FWIW I think there is corruption of the system and Windows 7 either needs to be Repaired or Reinstalled. An alternative might be System File Checker.

    Your message was generated on a Vista system and the user solved the problem by uninstalling and reinstalling the SP1. This report is what lead me to make my earlier statement.  Reinstalling is not to be lightly undertaken as you need then to be reinstall all programmes with all that entails.

    Hope this helps, Gerry Cornell

    Gerry. The problem arises when I try to turn system protection on. It doesn't see the C: drive, or any drive - just says "searching"

    David

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