AA1 XP no Windows System Restore

I have tried to start XP Restore, supplied with XP Home (SP3 installed).
XP Startup is a default windows service.
It is set to start automatically, by default and begins on-demand. This OS is as-supplied by Acer.
When I start System Restore I get the following:-
"System Restore has been turned off. Do you want to turn on System Restore now?"
I press "Yes".
System Properties pops up in a new window inviting me to change the default "Off" setting for System Restore and the Status section shows "Acer (C Turned off".
I uncheck the "Turn Off System Restore".
The window responds by allowing me to vary the "Disk space usage"
Allowing the maximum usage I click Apply. (I've also tried other usage settings.)
The following message appears:-
"System Restore encountered an error trying to disable/enable one or more drives. Please restart your machine and try again."
This does not work.
I have tried to manually start the Restore service, result "Service started then stopped" ...
So, something is running that looks for and stops System Restore ...
Things I have checked:-
No viruses found. Triple-checked, various methods.
Researched potential reasons. None found (unable to search this forum as a Search facility is not available!???)
I did find a Regisrtry edit that might work - see http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_ed ... estore.reg but am reluctant to use is since ... I have no Windows System Restore!
Please don't ask why I need XP System Restore just accept that I need XP System Restore.
Please don't advise that XP System Restore does this or that. I know what it does.
Please don't ask me to restore from a recovery disk/partition. I could if necessary but that's an irrelevance.
Can someone just please explain why this fresh-out-of-the-box PC won't run XP System Restore properly?
Thanks, Ray
(FWIW I have / had / built about 35 PCs/laptops with XP Home/Pro / Sp1/2/3 etc etc and System Restore ALWAYS works. This is the first time I've seen this problem. It's baffling.)

 

OK, having received no reply for 2 days I decided to JFDI in the following order ...
Installed Windows Backup from C:/VALUEADD/MSFT/NTBACKUP/NTBACKUP.MSI That saves the registry, at least.
Ran Windows Backup, saving everything especially System State to an external drive.
Saved http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_ed ... estore.reg
Imported it using Sart, Run, regedit, File, Import
Restarted.
All 100% OK
To be 100% sure ...
Ran System Restore, manually set a restore point.
Restarted, OK.
Checked that my restore point had occurred, yes.
Did a full virus scan to ensure I had't imported anything nasty. All OK.
HTH, Ray
PS in amongst all this I converted the hard drive to NTFS as it had been supplied with XP etc in a single Fat32 partition. Then created a small Fat32 partition for use as the XP swapfile.
Next steps will be to upgrade the RAM from the current 1gb and create another partition for data only so that I can efficiently back up downloads etc to the external hard drive. I'll also look at multi-booting Windows 7 or else the hopefully lightweight but yet-to-be-officially launched Google OS.
PPS this is a proper PC. I like it lots. Ok, the screen is tiny but very, very easy on the eye. In all other respects it deserves the same fundamental software and data security, with automatic safety precautions in place, as any other PC.
PPPS all this is being typed in using Google Chrome. The truly cumbersome McAfee software has also been replaced with AVG.

 

for all others if you press 'alt' and 'f10' at the same time on boot up it will do full factory setting restore