Like many, most of the time I try using system restore, it fails. I'm sure it's reliablity can be enhanced. It seems that whenever I find my EHD's being monitored by systems restore (to me that's a bit of a needless annoyance), no sytem restore point will ever work. What with the original MS bug in Windows System Restore (and EHD's), currently resolved or not, it seems to me that assuring I never monitor the EHD's, I stand a better chance for a restore point to work. As I've no need in restoring my EHDs, and I believe an environment thing is causing failed restorations, maybe one way to avoid EHD's from getting into the mix, is to never boot the pc while any EHD is connected. One'd think that given MS's initial efforts at dealing with the initial admitted bug, that we might've been afforded a means to lock out our EHD's (so we don't have to regiment EHD disco's at shutdowns and/or startups). Hard to believe I'm not running across much if anything discussing default system restore settings, not to mention common causes for failed system restorations. One real question here, I have no idea and see no help afforded the user settings for system restore (with respect to my C&D drive, verses just the C drive). In that my D drive's listed as the HP_Recovery Drive, I believe by default and/or necessity, only C was ticked for monitoring. Would anything ever necessitate D be ticked? Regards and hap-e-trails, Steve Hopper

Is it actually an admitted bug? I just learned recently that one must pay MS to make a bug report or so I heard.

I do not believe it is a recognized bug as far as MS is concerned. It is common knowledge that System Restore does not work all of the time. It would be foolish to rely on it. Do an image of your main drive onto a secondary drive or DVD/CD. At least with this method you have a reliable means of recovering your system.