This is what worked: scanned my drives and memory, all working fine. Still can't get to an earlier restore point, so I am un-installing the latest Win 11 "quality" update, which is taking more than a few minutes to process. (eyeroll) So, after about 10 min, it took to uninstall most recent "quality" updates, I am now able to restore my Win 11 HP laptop to an earlier restore point. System restore worked, back in business.
This is definitely related to Win 11 updates, not optional updates, but the regular necessary updates. Win 10 updates I've had no problems with. A course, Win10 will be gone 10/2024. In the meantime, Microsoft needs to fix this.