Brian,

Have tried to interleave my replies.

Brian wrote:

I made it back. I'm jet-lagged as hell, but ready to plunge forward:

Can you access the SYSTEM_SAV drive or is it "locked"? If so can you
see the contents of the _RESTORE folder?
*****The E:\SYSTEM_SAV\_RESTORE folder is empty (I have set folder
options to "show hidden files".) I think we determined this folder is
something compaq installed. The "real" _RESTORE folder is C:\_RESTORE.
This is where the .CAB files are created before being wiped out by
restarts.

Could you please check the folder E:\_RESTORE rather than the folder
E:\SYSTEM_SAV\_RESTORE. What letter does the file srdiskid.dat contain?

I'm wondering here whether the file srdiskid.dat contains the letter
D rather than E [snip]
*****I cannot find a file named srdiskid.dat on the C:, D:, or E:
files, unless I need to do something else during my search to uncover
hidden files.

I thought we had already covered this some time (weeks?) ago. g To enable
Explorer to see such files, whilst in Explorer, Tools | Folder Options | View.
CHECK "Show hidden files and folders" and UNCHECK "Hide protected operating
system files". Note that's one box to check and one box to UNCHECK. Do this
and you will see the files and folders in the _RESTORE archive.

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.
*****Ah. The USB is marked as removable. The internal CD-ROM is
checked DMA, but the "Removable" box is unchecked and grayed out. The
external firewire CD-R/W drive is not marked DMA, and also has its
grayed out "Removable" box unchecked. Should these be changed and, if
so, how?

That seems to be as it should be and nothing needs to be changed.

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.
*****D:\HARDDRIVE2 still has less than 4GB on it, which can easily be
transferred to the C:\ drive - or wiped out. I installed this drive
for a video capture project. When the restore issue popped up, I
decided to cure this (or reinstall) before moving forward. How would
I go about fdisking (whatever that is)? Would this automatically swap
the drive designations between the D:\ and E:\ drives?

You will have fdisked your new drive before formatting it and adding it to
your PC. Unless fdisked it would not have a partition and not be visible in
Explorer and therefore not able to be formatted. If you were to fdisk it
again (which would wipe out its current contents, I would a) remember to click
Y when asked if you want to have large disk support, and then b) rather than
creating a primary partition (which would enumerate as D), instead create an
extended partition and a logical drive within that partition which would
enumerate as E. The reason being that Win 9x systems enumerate all primary
partitions, starting with C, and then follow those with any logical drives in
extended partitions.

Thus I think your current system enumerates as follows:
C: - Primary active partition on disk 1
D: - Primary partition on disk 2
E: - Logical drive (SYSTEM_SAV) in extended partition on disk 1

Fdisking your second drive to have just a logical drive in an extended
partition would then mean the drives would enumerate as follows:
C: - Primary active partition on disk 1
D: - Logical drive (SYSTEM_SAV) in extended partition on disk 1
E: - Logical drive in extended partition on disk 2

Now, of course, it is quite possible that your drive layout has nothing to do
with why system restore keeps resetting itself but is nevertheless a
possibility.

References:
KB255867 - "How to Use the Fdisk Tool and the Format Tool to Partition or
Repartition a Hard Disk" (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=255867)
KB51978 - "Order in Which MS-DOS and Windows Assign Drive Letters"
(http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=51978)

Mike, my eyes are glazing. As they say on talk radio, "I'll hang up
and listen to your reply!"

You and me both (eyes glazing over). g

Regards,
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP