How to disable system restore on USB and 1394 hard drives?

lynrat · External Since: Jan 06, 2006 Posts: 4

Am tired of XP littering all of my removable hard drives with the system
restore folders. Is there a way to keep system restore enabled for the two
permanent hard drives in my system, but prevent it from adding all new drives
to the list of monitored drives? I use a combination of USB and 1394
removable hard drives. Currently running XP Pro with C: as the OS drive and
D: as a data drive, these never change, well almost never. Am considering
dual-booting with Vista Ultimate soon also, will i have the same issue with
it?

Dave B. · External Since: Aug 29, 2006 Posts: 471

Can't you just turn it off on each drive while it's plugged in?
As a side note, there is no reason to keep it turned on for your data drive
either, just the system drive, as it doesn't back up general files, just
system files and the registry.

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"lynrat" <lynrat.RemoveThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:44E888BD-D04D-493C-9C3F-D8505274A754@microsoft.com...
> Am tired of XP littering all of my removable hard drives with the system
> restore folders. Is there a way to keep system restore enabled for the two
> permanent hard drives in my system, but prevent it from adding all new
> drives
> to the list of monitored drives? I use a combination of USB and 1394
> removable hard drives. Currently running XP Pro with C: as the OS drive
> and
> D: as a data drive, these never change, well almost never. Am considering
> dual-booting with Vista Ultimate soon also, will i have the same issue
> with
> it?

lynrat · External Since: Jan 06, 2006 Posts: 4

Thank you for any and all responses.
Well sure, can turn it off for each drive after it is plugged in, by then
windows has already created its folders on the drive, which of course means
that I've gotta clean up behind it still...
Agreed on the point of not needing it for my data drive. But that point also
also indicates that XP is wasting time and resources monitoring new drives
that are not and will not be system drives.

"Dave B." wrote:

> Can't you just turn it off on each drive while it's plugged in?
> As a side note, there is no reason to keep it turned on for your data drive
> either, just the system drive, as it doesn't back up general files, just
> system files and the registry.
>
> --
> ----
> Crosspost, do not multipost http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm
> How to ask a question http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
> How to Post http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> "lynrat" <lynrat RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:44E888BD-D04D-493C-9C3F-D8505274A754@microsoft.com...
> > Am tired of XP littering all of my removable hard drives with the system
> > restore folders. Is there a way to keep system restore enabled for the two
> > permanent hard drives in my system, but prevent it from adding all new
> > drives
> > to the list of monitored drives? I use a combination of USB and 1394
> > removable hard drives. Currently running XP Pro with C: as the OS drive
> > and
> > D: as a data drive, these never change, well almost never. Am considering
> > dual-booting with Vista Ultimate soon also, will i have the same issue
> > with
> > it?
>
>
>

Bert Kinney · External Since: Nov 29, 2006 Posts: 687

lynrat wrote:
> Am tired of XP littering all of my removable hard drives with the system
> restore folders. Is there a way to keep system restore enabled for the two
> permanent hard drives in my system, but prevent it from adding all new drives
> to the list of monitored drives? I use a combination of USB and 1394
> removable hard drives.

Here's a technique that should stop the external drives from being monitored
by System Restore.
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/tips.html#11

> Currently running XP Pro with C: as the OS drive and
> D: as a data drive, these never change, well almost never.

There's most likely no good reason to monitor the D: drive either because
System Restore doesn't monitor data files.

List of files and folders System Restore monitors:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/filesfolders.html

> Am considering
> dual-booting with Vista Ultimate soon also, will i have the same issue with it?

The good news here is by default Vista will only monitor the drive/partition
Vista is installed.

The bad news is that if Vista is installed along with XP in a dual boot
scenario using the Vista bootloader, after booting into XP all restore
points/shadow copies will be lost in Vista.

More on this.
Dual Booting Windows Vista & Windows XP:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/dualboot.html

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org

Bert Kinney · External Since: Nov 29, 2006 Posts: 687

Hi,

lynrat wrote:
> Thank you for any and all responses.
> Well sure, can turn it off for each drive after it is plugged in, by then
> windows has already created its folders on the drive, which of course means
> that I've gotta clean up behind it still...

If you are referring to the System Volume Information (SVI) folder, there is
no way to prevent it from being created. If the Indexing Service is turned
on it will use the SVI folder to store files. And if Encrypting File System
(EFS) is in use, it will use the SVI folder to store the log file that is
generated during the encryption and decryption process. So you can see that
the SVI folder is not created by System Restore but by Windows, and it can
not be permanently deleted.

> Agreed on the point of not needing it for my data drive. But that point also
> also indicates that XP is wasting time and resources monitoring new drives
> that are not and will not be system drives.

System Restore will not cause any noticeable performance impact when
monitoring your machine. The creation of a Restore point also is a very fast
process and usually takes only a few seconds. Scheduled System Checkpoints
(every 24 Hrs by default) are also only created at system idle time so that
their creation never interferes with any user using the machine.

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org

> "Dave B." wrote:
>
>> Can't you just turn it off on each drive while it's plugged in?
>> As a side note, there is no reason to keep it turned on for your data drive
>> either, just the system drive, as it doesn't back up general files, just
>> system files and the registry.
>>
>> --
>> ----
>> Crosspost, do not multipost http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm
>> How to ask a question http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
>> How to Post http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> "lynrat" wrote
>>> Am tired of XP littering all of my removable hard drives with the system
>>> restore folders. Is there a way to keep system restore enabled for the two
>>> permanent hard drives in my system, but prevent it from adding all new drives
>>> to the list of monitored drives? I use a combination of USB and 1394
>>> removable hard drives. Currently running XP Pro with C: as the OS drive and
>>> D: as a data drive, these never change, well almost never. Am considering
>>> dual-booting with Vista Ultimate soon also, will i have the same issue
>>> with it?

BuelensC · Joined: Jun 11, 2008 Posts: 1

I turned off SYSTEM RESTORE for my USB devices.
Windows/XP Pro however turns SYSTEM RESTORE back on :
- almost every time for my external disk with 4 partitions
- sometimes for two other disks with only 1 NTFS partition
And, I did assign a unique letter to all these partitions, so it is not that Win/XP sees these disks appear with other drive letters.

I hate this as SYSTEM RESTORE keeps a file open which prevents a dismount. So, before dismounting I have to revisit, My Computer->Porperties->System Restore-> etc

Thanks for any help.