What's wrong with system restore?

Question

I have/had (who knows) a virus on my pc. It was eating up all the space on my pc. I didn't know I had the virus at first, so I thought I just had too many program and whatnot. I deleted a LOT of stuff and every few minutes, I still get Windows is Running Low on Disc Space. I checked the Norton Antivirus thingy and it said that it detected very corrupted files and there was airus on my pc. I went to system restore (like I've done so many tims before) and it had several dates in blue that I could go back to. But the only day I could actually click on was today's date. I know I have a lot of other restore points within the last two weeks. Why can't I go back?

Answer 1

Perhaps the restore points were corrupted by the virus. The items you deleted, did you know what you were deleting? Since you didn't tell us what virus you have nor which items you deleted, it's hard to say why you can't restore prior to today.

Answer 2

I'm not certain, but unfortunately, it does sound like your restores have become corrupt. You can adjust the amount of disk space that system restore takes up, but if you are running low on disk space, you will have less restore points. you may have run too low and some of the restore points were lost. I don't think it adjusts automatically and wipes out old restores, but I'd say, along with the infection, something has caused them to become corrupt.

I recommend searching Yahoo! for "online virus scanners" when you are satisfied with one you find.. I recommend www. bit******** .com , I masked the name because of policy, I think you can figure it out. Anyway, find the one you want to use run their online virus scan. You may want to reboot in safe mode with network features and revisit their homepage and use their online virus scanner again. Sometimes you will want to scan back to back, even try running an online scan while you have a local scan running, if you have a virus scan installed on your computer.

Viruses can be a real pain in neck and there are many variables that can have an affect on your computer, you might want to consult a professional; you could end up spending a whole day on the problem and not get anywhere.

Answer 3

One way that viruses 'protect' themselves is to fill up your hard drive space so that there is not enough room for previous restore points. The system resotre usually uses a fixed % of your HD to create restore points.

Since your HD is filling up (probably due to a virus) then the first thing that Windows dumps to make room is older resotre points. The blue dates that look OK are probably a result of corrupted entries and point to restore sets that no longer exist.

Your best bet is to run msconfig (Start -->Run --> msconfig) and do a selctive sart up. Turn off everything except Microsoft programs and Norton. Then run a full system scan. Restart and run another scan, as well as anti-spyware scans. Hopefully that will catch it.