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
    2013-04-19T22:07:14+00:00

    Big thanks to Gerry and drc1939. I was having the same probelm you did, David, I read this ENTIRE article and I found a solution. The solution was that I had to turn on Windows Service Shadow Copy Provider. Again, THANKS!

                                           R-e Miller.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-02-11T13:03:29+00:00

    Mark

    Based on what you say it appears that your system restore is not working correctly. What should happen is that when the system is told to create a restore point it should check available disk space. If there is insufficient disk space then it should remove existing restore points on a FIFO (First In First Out) basis to accommodate the new restore point.

    http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/335-system-protection-change-disk-space-usage.html

    Please note the default setting is that each partition is monitored. This is unnecessary and you should turn off monitoring all partitions except C; that is where your operating system normally resides.

    A further complication is that when free disk is reduced to below a specified level, system restore will surrender allocated disk space

    http://www.windows7hacker.com/index.php/2012/07/some-facts-about-windows-low-disk-space-warning-balloon/

    What can cause confusion is that windows backup uses a different method to determine available disk space, which is unrelated  to the amount of free disk space. This commonly causes windows backup to fail. System restore uses free disk space on C to store restore points. Windows backup places backup copies where the user tells the utility to put them.

    You can find reports in Event Viewer that can help you find out the nature of the problem.

    To access the System log select Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Event Viewer, from the list in the left side of the window select Windows Logs and System. You may also need to look at the Application to get a more complete picture.

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