System Restore - disk space

How to Change the System Restore Disk Space Usage Amount in Vista ​

   Information

By default Vista allocates 15% of your selected hard drive volume to storing System Restore points after installation. If System Restore is turned on much later, it may only allocate a minimum of 30% of the available free space instead. When the allocated space fills up with restore points, System Restore will delete the older restore points to make room for the new ones. System Restore needs at least 300 MB allocated to it to run, and will not run on a hard drive smaller than 1 GB. In the Vista Business and Ultimate versions, this area is also where backup copies of deleted or changed files are stored and made available through the Previous Versions feature (Shadow Copy). For more information about the Vssadmin command, see: Microsoft Technet: Vssadmin

   Note

System Restore needs to be turned on to be able to change it's storage size. To turn on System Restore and select what drives Vista is to create restore points for, see: How to Turn System Restore On or Off in Vista

   Warning

• If you shrink the available storage space for a selected drive, Vista will kick out the system restore points and backups on a first-in, first-out basis. The oldest restore point will be deleted as the new one is saved when out of available max space. This will, of course, leave you with fewer restore options.
• If you dual boot with Windows XP, then everytime you start in XP the System Restore Points and all except the most recent Complete PC Backup files in Vista get deleted. For how, see: How to Stop System Restore Points from being Deleted in Vista when Dual Booting with XP

   Tip

If you just want to free up some space, then you can run Disk Cleanup instead.

STEP ONE

How to See the Current Allocated System Restore Size

1. Open a elevated command prompt.​

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2. If prompted by UAC, click on Continue.​

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3. In the elevated command prompt, type vssadmin list shadowstorage and press Enter. (See screenshots below)​

NOTE: This will give your the details on the Used, Allocated, and Maximum spaces of Shadow Copies for the available disks that you selected to have restore points created for in step 6 here: How to Turn System Restore On or Off in Vista. The left screenshot is for just one drive selected, and the right screenshot is for two drives (C & D ) selected.​

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Result	Description
Used	This is the amount currently used on the hard disk.
Allocated	This is the amount that it has reserved from the hard disk at this time.
Maximum	This is the maximum amount it will allocate and use from the hard disk.

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STEP TWO

How to Change the Maximum System Restore Size

NOTE: If you disable or enable System Restore for a selected drive, the original default values will be set back and the restore points will be deleted. For how, see: How to Disable or Enable System Restore in Vista.

1. In same elevated command prompt window from above, type for EX:​

WARNING: If you change the MAX size to a smaller size than the current Used size shown in METHOD ONE above, then the older restore points will be deleted to adjust to the new size. Nothing will happen to the restore points if you make the MAX size larger than the current Used size shown in METHOD ONE above.​

A) For the listed C: drive, type the command below and press Enter.​

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vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /Maxsize=[B][COLOR=red]3GB[/COLOR][/B]

B) For the listed D: drive, type the command below and press Enter.​

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vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=D: /On=D: /Maxsize=[B][COLOR=red]3GB[/COLOR][/B]

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   Note

See the screenshots below step 5 in OPTION ONE above under the Shadow Copy Storage association line for each drive listed.​

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Command	Description
/For=	The For volume: listed. (Ex: C or D above)
/On=	The Shadow Copy Storage volume: listed. (Ex: C or D above)
/Maxsize=	What you want to limit the maximum storage size of Shadow Copies (restore points) to. For example, # + GB or MB (Ex: 3GB or 3MB) This must be 1MB or larger.

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2. You will get a Successfully resized the shadow copy storage association message.​

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3. If not, repeat step 1.​

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4. If yes, then check with STEP ONE above to confirm the change for the selected drive.​

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5. Close the elevated command prompt when done.​

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That's it,
Shawn



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Related Tutorials

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• How to Create a System Restore Shortcut in Vista
• How to Create a Create System Restore Point Shortcut in Vista
• How to Create a System Restore Point in Vista
• How to Undo the Last System Restore in Vista
• How to Do a System Restore in Vista
• How to Turn System Restore On or Off in Vista
• How to Use Disk Cleanup in Vista
• How to Restore Previous Versions of a File and Folder in Vista
• How to Stop System Restore Points from being Deleted in Vista when Dual Booting with XP
• How to Change the Automatic System Restore Point Settings in Vista Task Scheduler
• How to Enable or Disable Create Vista System Restore Point when New Device Driver is Installed
• How to Enable or Disable Create Vista System Restore Point when a Application is Installed

 

[Brink]

Metrotek,

I'm not sure what the issue may be. Could be something to do with that particular external encloser. Since it's an external HDD, you really don't need to have system protection turned on for it since you'll probably use it as a data or backup drive though.

The one that you really need to have system protection turned on for is your Windows drive.

 

[Metrotek]

So, when I make restore points and they are basically vssamin For=C On=C, it's just taking the stored data from there to perform a restore....I have plenty of storage space on C so I suppose it really doesn't matter. I just read that Vista Home Premium won't do external Shadow Copies...
Thanks for pursuing this with me.
Have a great holiday season.

 

[Brink]

I hope you have a great holiday season as well.

 

[ASmith9199]

Wow, thank you so much! I have been searching for the answer to this problem for so long, and I never have seen such a simple answer. You go straight to the source of the problem here. I was at 38 gigs used, and the maximum allowable space was UNBOUNDED...yikes! Thank you for your excellent tutorials.

That's it.

Andrew

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome Andrew, and welcome to Vista Forums.

 

[Ex_Brit]

VSS is very fickle I find. In my Vista Main (I have 2 Vista, 2 W7 and 1 W8 multi-boot with VSS turned on in each one for that partition only) it is forever deleting all restore points and then refusing to make new ones even with max space of 100gb allowed.
I've tried re-registering the dll's, turning VSS off and back on and resizing the max space allowed to as much as that partition will bear to no avail.
It seems sometimes it works and other times not.
I read online that in multi-boot systems it's hit-and-miss at the best of times, but as it used to work OK am wondering if recent Windows Updates have messed with it perhaps?
It isn't vitally important as I rarely have to use System Restore, but would prefer it worked all the time and not just when it feels like it.
Any ideas? (I know, A Guru who should know the answers, well I'm not perfect!!)

 

[Brink]

Hello Peter,

I find that multi-boot systems have a lot off issues with cross VSS as well. Having System Protection turned on only in that OS for only that OS's drive letter helps some, but it doesn't always work for all.

Some 3rd party defraggers and utility programs will also delete restore points when used.

Personally, I use virtual machines for the other operating systems instead to avoid this issue.

 

[Ex_Brit]

Hi Shawn,

The VM idea is probably best in this case I realise. I'm willing to bet that when I boot up tomorrow it''ll all miraculously work again. I was used to disappearing restore points with XP and Vista/7 combinations, but found without XP in the equation things worked, well obviously I was wrong.
The only defragger I use is Diskeeper 12 installed in my main Vista - it's showing the VSS isn't active in any of my drives right now, which is very odd because it's turned on in all, so probably all of them are now minus restore points. Up until now it's worked well obviously something has changed, somewhere. I'll play it be ear and hope for the best.

I'm suspecting a Vista update actually as I also noticed that the space allocated to VSS was reduced from where I set it some time ago.

By the way, it wont let me create any either.

Thanks ;-)

 

[Brink]

Odd that it won't even let you create a restore point. Any errors?

You might see if turning off and on System Protection may toggle it to work properly again.

 

[Ex_Brit]

I'll try that and reboot between each. When I get a chance. My ISP went down for a few hours so am catching up.

 

[Ex_Brit]

Well I switched off SR and left the machine off overnight. Turned it back on this morning and got the same result.




From the elevated Command Prompt you can see I set Max size at 100gb. BTW that T: drive is my external drive, not quite sure why Windows has given it an allocation as I have never set one for it.
Curious that none of my other drives show there, they always used to.



I'm wondering if something else is interfering with the process. It's always worked with Diskeeper 12 in place and that hasn't updated lately. I'm wondering if my McAfee All Access is affecting it somehow - it's been known to do weird things before. I should know as a volunteer Mod on their forums.

I will now run a System File Check to see if that helps. (sfc /scannow).

 

[Ex_Brit]

Well sfc completed and was unable to fix some corrupted files...see CBS log.

I have no idea how to interpret such things so may end up doing a repair installation, but that will be my last resort.

View attachment 27824

 

[Brink]

Peter,

For the Restore Point 0x8007000E error, how much RAM do you have on that system, and what is the page file set to?

From your CBS log, it showed that SFC found a few corrupted or modified files below, but was able to repair then from the store. The log also said "Committing transaction" and "Cannot commit interactively, there are boot critical components being repaired", so you may need to run SFC a few times with a restart after each time to allow it to fix them or finish any boot repairs.

• C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll
• C:\Windows\system32\wbem\Wdf01000Uninstall.mof
• C:\Windows\system32\wbem\Wdf01000.mof
• C:\Windows\system32\wbem\Wdf01000Uninstall.mof
• C:\Windows\system32\wbem\Wdf01000.mof

 

[Ex_Brit]

Hmmm, not too sure about the boot files as I'm using Easy BCD for that.

I have 12578mb allocated for Page File for all drives right now with a recommended setting of 18417 (I've set it to System Managed now...was set originally to automatic for all drives). Will reboot to see if that makes a difference.

Oops forgot....12gb of RAM.

 

[Ex_Brit]

Shawn,

Guess what? Now it works. There are times I could quite cheerfully hurl my PC over my balcony, but I will resist as this mother was extremely expensive.....LOL.

Thanks for your help as always.

Now the question is why did unchecking the item below make a difference? It was checked for years and I got SR points created OK.

 

[Brink]

Great news.

If the page file size was already set to be automatically managed by the system, then I'm not sure why unless it just happened to toggle it off and on to reset it.

 

[Ex_Brit]

Here's what VSSADMIN shows now:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6002]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin list shadowstorage
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.

Shadow Copy Storage association
For volume: (T\\?\Volume{ee67c94f-ddc4-11e1-aa00-806e6f6e6963}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume: (T\\?\Volume{ee67c94f-ddc4-11e1-aa00-806e6f6e69
63}\
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 B
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 B
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 279.453 GB

Shadow Copy Storage association
For volume: (C\\?\Volume{ee67c950-ddc4-11e1-aa00-806e6f6e6963}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C\\?\Volume{ee67c950-ddc4-11e1-aa00-806e6f6e69
63}\
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 846 MB
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 3.516 GB
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 100 GB

Shadow Copy Storage association
For volume: (D\\?\Volume{ee67c951-ddc4-11e1-aa00-806e6f6e6963}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume: (D\\?\Volume{ee67c951-ddc4-11e1-aa00-806e6f6e69
63}\
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 2.034 GB
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 3.405 GB
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 34.933 GB

Shadow Copy Storage association
For volume: (L\\?\Volume{ee67c952-ddc4-11e1-aa00-806e6f6e6963}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume: (L\\?\Volume{ee67c952-ddc4-11e1-aa00-806e6f6e69
63}\
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 216.938 MB
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 682.667 MB
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 23.288 GB

Shadow Copy Storage association
For volume: (M\\?\Volume{ee67c953-ddc4-11e1-aa00-806e6f6e6963}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume: (M\\?\Volume{ee67c953-ddc4-11e1-aa00-806e6f6e69
63}\
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 241.75 MB
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 682.667 MB
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 10 GB


C:\Windows\system32>

I booted through all the systems and checked. The Restore points had vanished on all of them but were creatable without any issues.
Two anomalies. my Win 7 Spare (M and Win 8 (N both were set to System Managed Page File whereas in a multi-boot only the drive with the boot files (C should have a page file. so I altered them to match D:, and L: - which were "No Pagefile". If I recall I did a repair on that 7 and a refresh on 8 which probably reset those.
So not sure really why it made a difference. Maybe a combination of things. But now all my drives have restore points of their own, so we are all happy here.

Thanks ;-)

 

[Brink]

The error you got is usually due to not enough page file size for Windows to work in.

I'm happy to hear it's working as it should now.

 

[Ex_Brit]

I know and that's why I was so puzzled by it because Windows had scads of memory available. Ah well, all's well that ends well so they say.

Thanks Shawn.

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Peter. Gotta love those odd quirks.