The _RESTORE folders shouldn't occupy more than 12% of your C: drive (or 400MB
if the drive is 4GB). If more than that it would appear that System Restore
is not discarding (FIFOing) older data correctly, possibly because at some
time the system was not immediately rebooted following a state change
(switching SR either off or on). In your case the archive is clearly totally
bust given the size of the _RESTORE\TEMP folder perhaps due to your having
malware from Norton installed on your PC. Personally I'm somewhat surprised
that you aren't also reporting that you are seeing the "Cannot upgrade file %1
from %2 %1: %2" error message each time you boot your PC.

So, my first suggestion is to reset System Resto
To reset System Resto
System | Performance | File System | Troubleshooting and check "Disable System
Restore", Apply and IMMEDIATELY reboot. This will flush you restore folder
and erase all checkpoints, then,
System | Performance | File System | Troubleshooting and uncheck "Disable
System Restore", Apply and again IMMEDIATELY reboot. This should now
automatically create a new checkpoint immediately following the restart.
Finally adjust the space allocated to the restore folder as explained earlier.

If this doesn't clear down the _restore archive (and it doesn't always when
users have experienced similar problems) the next suggestion is to boot to DOS
using a floppy and delete the entire _RESTORE folder structure from the
a) Boot to DOS using a floppy. Do NOT choose "Minimal Boot" from the menu
when booting from a floppy but rather choose "Start computer with (or without)
CD-ROM support" otherwise the ATTRIB command will not be available.
b) At the DOS A:\ prompt, type:

ATTRIB -H -S -R C:\_RESTORE
REN C:\_RESTORE OLDREST

c) Remove the floppy
d) Reboot your PC
e) Delete the folder C:\OLDREST
f) Check that an automatic system restore checkpoint was created.
g) Finally adjust the space allocated to the restore folder:

Finally you may want to give system restore the once over by carrying out the
following quick test.
a) Create a shortcut on your desktop to a file.
b) Create a manual checkpoint
c) Delete the shortcut
d) Restore you PC to the checkpoint you created.
Was the shortcut restored? Did you see any error messages?
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



Erin wrote:

Am having issues with my hard drive space. I have a 60gb
hard drive and 40+gb is in this hidden _Restore folder.
Over 36gb is in the temp folder. What is this temp folder
and can I delete it? It has a bunch of .cpy files from
years ago. A second question is if I have devoted only
400mb to my _restore file, how can it get to 40gb? Thanks
to anyone whom can help.
Erin