How to Fix Windows System Restore not working in Windows 10

How to Fix Windows System Restore not working in Windows 10: System Restore is a powerful utility in Windows that allows your system to roll back to a previous point in time. Basically, it is used to undo the changes made to your system. Say, for instance, you have performed a driver update and your system behaves strangely after that. By doing a System Restore, the driver update will be undone, so the issue related to the update will be fixed. But System Restore is not successful at all times. You may get errors (as shown in the image below) like ‘System Restore did not complete successfully’ on Windows 10. You may also see variations of this error like ‘System Restore failed’, ‘An unspecified error occurred during System Restore’, ‘0x80071a91 system restore’, ‘system restore windows 10 error 0x8000ffff’, error ‘0x80070091’ and such.

These errors occur usually due to errors with the restore point created, Windows update issues, corruption in system files or other unspecified reasons. This guide will show you different ways to fix system restore not working on Windows 10 in an efficient way.

Request you to follow the steps one by one to get better results and avoid complications in performing tasks.

Continue reading the easy ways on how to fix system restore not working in Windows 10.

How-To:

Method 1. Check if System Restore is enabled

Before we start, make sure that System Restore is enabled on your PC. You can check the status of System Restore by following these steps:

1. Press Windows Key + R and type gpedit.msc.

2. In the left pane navigate to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> System Restore.

3. Check the state of Turn off Configuration and Turn off System Restore settings. If they aren’t set to Not configured, double click each setting and set it to Not Configured.

4. Click Apply and OK to save changes.

Method 2. Try creating restore point manually

If the restore point isn’t working, you might want to try setting the restore point manually. To do that, follow these steps:

1. Press Windows Key + S and enter Create a restore point. Choose Create a restore point from the list of results.

2. System Properties window will open. Click Create button and enter the name for your new restore point.

3. Check if the restore point is created, and if so, use manually created restore points in the future.

Method 3. Disable your antivirus software to resolve system restore not working

Your antivirus software can sometimes interfere with System Restore, so it’s advised that you disable your antivirus software before trying to create or restore to a certain restore point.

Method 4. Run System Restore from Safe Mode

Certain software can sometimes create errors while using System Restore, therefore, it’s advised that you run System Restore from Safe Mode. To access Safe Mode you need to do the following.

1. Open Start Menu and click on Power button.
2. Hold Shift on your keyboard and click on Restart.

3. When your computer restarts choose Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings and click Restart.
4. When your computer restarts again, press F5 to select Safe Mode with Networking.
5. After you enter Safe Mode try to perform System Restore.

Method 5. Check your hard drive for errors

Sometimes restore point might not work due to corrupted files and folders on your drive, and in order to fix the corrupted files, you might need check your hard drive. To do that, follow these steps:

1. Press Windows Key + X and choose Command Prompt (Admin) from the menu.

2. When Command Prompt opens enter the following and press Enter:

chkdsk /f /r X:

Remember to replace “X” with the correct letter that represents a hard drive partition on your PC.

3. This process can take a while so be patient. You might have to restart your computer in order to complete the disk checking process.

Method 6. Perform sfc scan to resolve system restore not working

If your Windows 10 is corrupted, System Restore might not work properly, and in order to fix that you’ll have to run sfc scan. To do that follow these steps:

1. Press Windows Key + X and select Command Prompt (Admin) from the menu.
2. When Command Prompt opens, enter the following and press Enter to run it:

sfc /scannow

3. Follow the instructions and wait for the process to complete.

Method 7.  Perform the SFC scan before Windows starts

If running the SFC scan ‘normally’ didn’t get the job done, try with running it on the boot:

1. Restart your PC by following the first three steps from the previous solution.
2. When list of options appears, select Troubleshoot.
3. Choose Advanced options > Command Prompt.
4. When your PC restarts, you might be asked to enter your username and password, so be sure to do that.
5. Now you need to find the letter of your Windows 10 drive. To do that, enter wmic logicaldisk get deviceid, volumename, description command and press Enter to run it.
6. Pay attention to Volume Name. In most cases Windows Volume Name will be assigned to D letter. This is perfectly normal if you start Command Prompt before starting Windows, so no need to worry about it. In addition to checking the Windows drive, you should also check System Reserved drive. In most cases, it should be C.
7. Now enter sfc /scannow /offbootdir=d:\ /offwindir=d:\windows command and press Enter. Be sure to use the letters that you got from the previous step. In most cases, you should use C and D like we did in our example, but if for some reason you get different letters you should use them instead.
8. The scanning process will now start. Wait while your system files are scanned.
9. After the scan is completed, close Command Prompt and start Windows 10 normally.

Method 8. Make sure at least 300MB is used for System Restore by each partition

In order for System Restore to work properly, each partition that has System Restore enabled requires at least 300MB in order to work. To set the amount of disk space that will be used by System Restore, follow these steps:

1. Press Windows Key + S and type Create a restore point. Choose Create a restore point from the list of results.
2. When System Properties window opens, select a hard drive partition and click Configure.
3. Move the slider in order to adjust the amount of space that System Restore will use.

Method 9. Check if services are running properly to resolve system restore not working

System Restore relies on specific services, and if certain restore point isn’t working, it might be because certain services aren’t running. To check the services, do the following:

1. Press Windows Key + S and type services.msc. Press Enter or click OK.

2. When Services window starts, locate the following services: Volume Shadow Copy, Task Scheduler, Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider Service and System Restore Service.
3. Double click each of these services and make sure that Startup type is set to Automatic and that Service status is set to Running.

4. Click Apply and OK to save changes, close Services window and restart your computer.

Method 10. Run DISM to resolve system restore not working

Once again, if running the SFC scan in any way didn’t get the job done, try with DISM, which is a more advanced troubleshooting solution:

1. Type cmd in Search, right-click on the Command Prompt and run it as an administrator.
2. In the command line, copy-paste these lines one by one and press Enter after each:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

3. Wait until the procedure ends (it might take up to 10 minutes).
4. Restart your PC.

Method 11. Modify the registry to resolve system restore not working

And finally, if none of the solutions from above resolved the problem, let’s try one registry tweak:

1. Go to Search, type regedit, and open Registry Editor.
2. Navigate to this registry path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Schedule\TaskCache

3. First, back up the TaskCache registry key. Right-click TaskCache and select Export on its context menu.
4. Enter a title for the backup file, select a folder for it and press the Save button.
5. Next, navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Schedule\TaskCache\Tree\Microsoft\Windows

in the Registry Editor.

6. Right-click the Windows key and click Delete on its context menu.
7. Press the Yes button to confirm, and then you can close the Registry Editor.
8. Restart your computer.

Wrapping things up:

How’s your experience after following these tips and tricks?. Hope your issue on “system restore not working in Windows 10” got resolved. Please let us know using comments below, also like and share this guide to help others.

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NOTE: All the above methods are for advanced Computer users. If you are a novice, I recommend you reach a computer expert or download an error repair software. Click here to download repair software.