Brian,

Thanks for all that information.

Ah! Can you access the SYSTEM_SAV drive or is it "locked"? If so can you see
the contents of the _RESTORE folder? I'm wondering here whether the file
srdiskid.dat contains the letter D rather than E and that the discrepancy is
what is resetting system restore. Basically system restore will reset and
clear the archive if the assigned drive letter for a fixed drive differs from
that when last used. The last used drive letter being stored in srdiskid.dat.
Normally once reset the new value of srdiskid.dat will remain constant but I'm
wondering if there is anything in SYSTEM-SAV, which I assume is a proprietary
recovery partition, that keeps resetting srdiskid.dat back to containing D and
thus causing system restore to reset each time the system boots.

You might also want to check that your CD-ROM, CD-RW and Flash Pen are all
marked as removable devices on their property sheets in the Device Manager and
thus ignored by the state manager.

I'm guessing that by now the new drive is filling up otherwise I'd suggest
making a change so that it enumerated as drive E rather than D but that would
involve fdisking it again meaning that you would have to save all of the data
before doing so. This would then restore SYSTEM_SAV to being D and perhaps
solve the problem. Oh, I see from your list that it has "just" 3.4GB so it
might be worth considering. If so I'll post back what to do.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



Brian wrote:

As long as you're still willing to ask questions, I will try to
answer:

The number of *STARTUP APPLICATIONS* revealed via MSCONFIG was scary:
38 items, many of whose purpose I recognize, and several that I do
not. The only file which I know was recently added is
PinnacleDriverCheck, "PSDRVCheck.exe -CheckReg". This was part of my
installation/shakedown of Pinnacle Studio 8 DV software/hardware.
There may be another recent addition or two in there.

I have tried unchecking all the Startup functions that I know I do not
need loaded (the above, plus WinAmp, scanner finder, OCR software,
MoneyAgent, a bunch of Compaq help and easy button functions, etc.)
When I startup, I get a message that I am using selective startup for
troubleshooting. However, this startup state still does not solve the
Restore issue.

I boot only from the C: drive.

The *STORAGE HARDWARE* is as follows:
**Internal generic NEC floppy drive, assigned drive A:
**Native (boot) 30 GB IDE Hard Drive. Assigned drives C: (local) and
E: (SYSTEM_SAV). [C: using 17.0 of 25.2 GB and E: using 2.28/2.71 GB]
**Internal 85 GB Western Digital IDE HD. Assigned drive D: [using
3.4/74.5 GB]
**Internal Compaq CD-ROM LTN403, assigned drive F:
**External Yamaha CD-RW attached via firewire, assigned drive G:
**External 32 MB USB flash Pen drive, assigned drive H:

Notes relative to the drive assignments: (1) If I go to Device
Manager:Properties:Settings, I cannot reassign the drive letters for
any of the memory. (2) Installing the 85GD HD is a recent event. It
is my impression that this installation changed the drive assignment
of SYSTEM_SAV from drive D: to drive E:, fiving drive D: to the new
HD.

In addition to the HD installation, these are other recent events:
(1) Installation of a PNY 256MB PC100 RAM module, upping total RAM to
384MB RAM. To do this, I needed to relocate 2 64MB modules, putting
the 256MB module in the first memory slot; (2) To install Pinnacle
Studio DV v8, I installed the Studio DV board into my last available
PCI slot. The other PI slots contain the monitor input, dialup modem,
and a 3 input firewire board. The Pinnacle board appears to have the
right drivers installed, because I have been able to import digital
video through the Pinnacle Studio application; (3) The Pinnacle
shakedown also involved several uninstall/reinstalls of the s/ware,
running a RegDelete program, and a RegFix2 program to fix a problem
reading license info; (4) When installing the 85MB HD, Western
Digital's instructions said to use a supplied EIDE interface cable. I
was able to set up this drive as the slave by using the cable already
in my computer (Compaq Presario 5 000US, setting the jumper
appropriately. This drive is working properly, so I did not believe
the cable I utilized was an issue. (Probably more than you need/want
to know.)

Hope this helps. Thanks for hanging in with me.