Just a quick guide on how to make a bootable DVD using your Sony Upgrade Discs so you can do a clean install.
1) Insert your upgrade DVD into your DVD Drive and load up "Windows Explorer"
2) Browse to your DVD rom drive and expand it, there should be a bunch of directories, and you should have 2 that are called "Win7OS32" and "Win7OS64".....
DISCLAMER:The Windows 7 Beta is a pre-release version of Windows. While this a stable and high-quality beta,
it's not the finished product. It could crash your computer or cause you to lose important files or information.
BEFORE doing this procedure, backup all your data...
(Last update: May 27 2010)
Change log:
Mar 06 2010 - Changed SUS, VES, and VCC versions. Updated Intel 4965 adapter driver. Added Web-cam software. Added instruction for wireless band switching and disabling Bluetooth from device manager.
Mar 26 2010 - Updated Intel SATA/AHCI driver from 8.​9.​0.​1023 --> 9.6.0.1014
Mar 30 2010 - Updated Nvidia driver (laptopvideo2go) from 195.62 --> 197.16
Apr 03 2010 - Updated Nvidia driver (self modded inf) from 195.62 --> 197.16
Apr 22 2010 - Added Nvidia driver 197.45 through Windows Update
May 09 2010 - Update to SUS, S-button and additional settings in VCC.
May 27 2010 - Added Nvidia 257.15 driver, modded inf, and instructions.
The following steps below include various driver sources and install instructions.
1. Install your edition of Windows 7. I chose to change the UAC setting to never notify. If you leave it in the default setting, various prompts may open when installing the drivers and utilities. Open "Computer", click the "Organize" tab, navigate to "folder and search options", click "View" tab, and uncheck "Hide empty drives in the computer folder".
There will be two exclamation marks for the "Mass storage controller" and "Unknown device" in the device manager. Intel 4965 Wifi, Marvell network controller, and Conexant modem drivers are included in Windows 7. You can update them if necessary
Quote:
UPDATED OCTOBER 27 2009 FOR OFFICIAL WINDOWS 7 RELEASE
will benefit many of you upgrading to Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit RTM. This install was done and tested on a Vaio VGN-FW139E/H.
Hardware
While the VGN-FW line shares many components, many models also differ. So, I will first list the hardware that is on the VGN-FW139E and the install was done on.
Audio: Realtek High Definition
Audio (HDMI): Realtek ATI HDMI Audio
Network: Marvell Yukon 88E8055 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Wireless: Atheros AR928X
Touchpad: ALPS Pointing Device
SD Memory Card Reader: Ricoh
MS Memory Card Reader: Ricoh
Modem: Conexant CX11270
Video: ATI Mobility Radeon 3400 Series..................
I think I have a understanding of the process. Where I am not sure is the partitioning.
- Should I completely format the hard drive first and then begin my dual booting process?
or
- When I insert my windows prof [32bit] CD will I be given the option to format the entire hard drive and create new partitions?
and lastly
What is the best way to partition drives for windows XP and Vista with a 160 gb hard drive?
Guide: Clean installation of Windows 7 on Acer, heavily edited by moderators
This guide explains how to do a clean installation of Windows 7 on an Acer computer that's been licensed to used it.
If your system originally came with Windows Vista, you need an Acer Upgrade Kit.
If your system originally came with Windows 7, use the key on the bottom of your machine.
The described method will work for ANY edition (Starter/Home/Pro/Ultimate) and for ANY architecture (32/64-bit) and ANY language, but only the version you are licensed for; no free upgrades here.
Step 1: Verify eligibility for Windows 7.
CONTENT REMOVED DUE TO PIRACY CONCERNS
Either you are licensed for Windows 7 by having a key on the bottom of your machine, or you have an Acer Upgrade kit. If you have neither, then you are not licensed for it, regardless of what's in your BIOS.
Step 2: Back-up factory images and personal files.
Since we will be reinstalling Windows you will lose all your files and ability to restore to factory condition, so it would be a wise thing to make back-ups.
A. Back-up factory images.
If you want to have restore DVDs then it should be a good time to create them now. You can do it via Acer eRecovery program. If you have a built-in or external DVD drive then simply burn them and if you do not then you can save DVD image to your hard drive. Follow these instructions.
B. Back-up personal files.
If you have files you would like to keep now it is time to save them to either a flash drive or an external hard drive.
Step 3: Preparing Windows 7 installation image.
Simply use the content in this topic to download and prepare your Windows 7 DVD or USB key. This will also remove the version restriction so the burned DVD or prepped USB key can be used to install any version of Windows 7 - you'll still need the right license key, of course.
Step 4: Setting up Windows 7 installation media.
See above..................................................
I'm thinking about purchasing windows 7, do i need a clean install of windows vista to upgrade? and also do i need to get all the drivers ect like in the clean install of vista if i wish to upgrade? i have a vaio vgn-fw21L
View 3 Replies View RelatedIs there a way to create a Windows Vista Installation disc from either the Hidden Partition or Recovery discs? I am not talking about a "Factory Restore"... I am talking about installing a clean version of Windows using the product key on the bottom of the laptop and then using the sony website or Recovery discs to install the drivers.
View 4 Replies View RelatedWith all the hand wringing folks have been doing about the lack of drivers for a clean install of Win7 I thought I'd jump in to the deep end of the pool with my FZ190 and investigate an alternative. My good friends Rajesh and Dr. Pratik have done clean installs of Win7 on FZ models, but I decided to take a different approach... the "dreaded" OS in place upgrade. Partly out of curiosity, I wanted to see if it would work, but mainly because I have a ton of software that would need to be reinstalled, if I did a clean install. That would mean days or weeks of inventorying every thing I have installed, digging up installation media and then installing all the stuff. I just don't have the spare time. So...
This past weekend I imaged my C: drive (all my data and I mean ALL my data is on D:, I am a fanatic about that). MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACKUP OF YOUR C: DRIVE BEFORE YOU TRY AN UPGRADE! I ran the Windows 7 Update adviser and it said I had some issues:
Quote:
NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT - NVIDIA Not compatible The driver installed for this device is not compatible with Windows 7....................
clean Windows 7 (64) installation. My guide is more of a 'bare bones' installation as I only installed what is needed for functionality of the big features. The guide is incomplete. I will continue to update the document as I make more progress. Please feel free to report anything you find that is incorrect etc.
keep in mind this is for a FZ280 E/B, I have no idea if it will work on other FZ models.
I am still having problems with the Bluetooth driver/software and the Wireless Switch Utility (what exactly is this needed for?). I believe the functionality for Bluetooth is dependent on the something to do with the Wireless Switch Utility. However I haven't had any luck installing either option.
There appears to be a problem with the power management. I unplugged the notebook for the first time and the battery went from 95% to 60% within 5 - 10 minutes. Any thoughts will be appreciated. I will be researching for a solution as well.
Below is the attached guide and a link to download the drivers I have used for the installation.
[url]
I just received Windows 7 Upgrade Disc from Dell, and it says "Windows Vista Business to Windows 7 Professional Upgrade" on the disc and COA also says "Win Vista Bus to Win 7 Pro UPG Fullfill."
I was curious if it is really impossible to do a clean install with upgrade disc as regular upgrade disc is. (At least I was told that it is impossible), but I did not want to upgrade my notebook to Windows 7 yet.
So, I gave it a try on VMWare. It installed just like regular Windows 7 disc in a empty HDD. It even took COA that came with the upgrade disc.
I did not try activating because it probably will fail if it uses SLIC to activate, or in worst case, it will get activated on my VM, and I will be unable to active it when I actually want to upgrade my notebook's OS
I have a HP touchsmart envy 15 and I am trying to restore computer to factory default. About 6 months ago, the computer said I could make a boot disc and be able to use that to restore my computer to factory and after I make the boot disc, I can delete the recovery partition as it will be stored on the disc. So I went ahead and make the disc (it turned out to be 4 discs) and the computer deleted the partition. Now I am here trying to use the discs to restore to factory, however, my optical drive isn't detected when the bios is booting. Because of this I need to turn those 4 discs into a bootable USB thumb drive. I have looked all over and there are many different ways of converting 1 disc into usb, but not 4.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI should be getting my upgrade (Pro 64) within the next week and was wondering which method is better. I obviously know that it will run a bit faster for the first month or so with clean install, however, my concern is with the activation of the dell free upgrade version. Will it simply be boot the free upgrade disk and install and it will be activated fine? Or, is there more to it? Also, say a year from now I wanted reformat/reinstall win 7... How would I go about doing that with the dell free upgrade DVD?
View 10 Replies View RelatedI purchased a Sony VAIO VGN-Z46GD and was eligible for the Windows 7 Upgrade program. So my Windows 7 Disc & Supplement Disc arrived in no time. I did a CLEAN install with the Windows 7 Disc wiping everything (this was intentional).
The problem is the Supplement Disc will not run at all, gives me an error (is there a way to force it?). I used the mod2wim tool to extract all WIM's from it however I have had no success in getting my VAIO special buttons working, power management or my function keys operational. The extracted WIM's are also a bit odd, includes ATi drivers when clearly my machine is hybrid intel/nvidia.
From what I have read on the Forums I need to install things in a specific order. Also if I can't find my drivers where can I look to re-download them?
I'm wondering what order do the drivers and applications have to be in to do a Windows 7 clean install for the i7 F series?
View 10 Replies View RelatedI have a VGN-790P notebook, currently with Windows Vista Business installed; 2GB RAM; 2.16 GHz centrino duo. However, through my school I can download Windows 7 for free!
I really want to upgrade my OS to Windows 7, but Sony is not providing drivers for my model. Is there any way that I can still install it and get the drivers from somewhere? I really dont want to do it if it's going to cause a bunch of functionality issues.
Also, I think that a clean install would be best, just to clear out my computer and possibly make it a bit more responsive. Is it possible to do this if I will be downloading Windows 7 and not have a physical disk for the install?
I am reading the various threads about how to go about performing a Windows 7 clean install.
I see and understand the requirements to load the Sony 'platform' drivers to get the various custom hardware working.
but what about reinstalling the original applications? Particularly some of the custom VAIO apps .....
I have been trying to make a clean install of Windows 7 but when I get to the install screen,
it says that "it does not recognize my drive." This happened too when I tried to install windows XP,
and I solved it by slipstreaming the SATA controller drivers but, I don't know where to find those for windows 7, or if that even will solve the same problem
I just received my sony Z1190X(CTO) and plan to do clean install on it. I just finished making the recovery&restore DVD and have Windows 7 Ultimate ready.
However, when I go on the US Sony website, they say some drivers are not compatible with Ultimate version. I downloaded every drive with Win Professional setting. Will it not work with Windows 7 Ultimate
Is there a way to do a fresh install from a restore disk with none of the bloatware? And then just install all the drivers?
View 3 Replies View Relatedperforming a clean install of Windows 7 32bit on a Sony Vaio FZ from Windows Vista.
I have searched the forums and have only found guides for performing an upgrade install to 32bit and a clean install to 64bit.
I have a Sony vaio FW21M
it has the mata bd-mlt uj230as basically the blu-ray drive......
I was wondering if anyone has the correct driver for this because I can't seem to play any blurays and can't burn anything with it, it just works like a normal dvd drive, does nothing else
I did a clean install so i need the firmware, I tried all the links on this forum and can only find the UPDATE for the driver not the original install..........
i want to create a partition on my 320gb vaio z hard drive so i can install windows 7 beta and dual boot vista and windows 7.
However i am running into a problem; when i try to partition using the built in partition tool once vista is done querying for available shrink space vista is telling me that i can only shrink 9.9gb out of my available 296gb of space left.
Now i ran a defrag, deleted old system restores and shadown copies and the available size hasn't changed.
i have a Sony aw290 laptop and i have install anew clean windows but when i try to update any firmware update its give error is there is away to do that with out
reinstalling the original operation system ?
I was searching for a Thread that has some data about clean instructions and restoring all functions for the VAIO E-Series, but I didn't find one.
And since there is a lot of users here who own the VAIO E-Series, I think it might be useful.
So, can anyone share his experience with a clean install on the VAIO E-Series and how did you do that?
Some special order in installing drivers? What's about the FN-Buttons? Whats about the Assist and WEB Buttons? Are they all working?
I'd like to run the recovery program on it and take it back to factory stock settings .....
View 8 Replies View RelatedI've been trying to create recovery disks for the new VPCZ1 I got a couple days ago through the VIAO care Recovery and Restore tool. I get two error messages either:
"No installed optical drive is detected on your computer" even though the drive seems to be working fine outside of the recovery tool.
or
"The disc in the drive is not blank or is not a supported disc type"
even though the computer recognizes the disc as a blank dvd outside of the recovery tool.
I usually get the first error message, then when I hit "back" and click create a recovery disk again, I get the second error message.
I have formatted my drive and installed fresh copy of Vista and I forgot to backup my data.
I have recovered this partition labeled Compaq Diagnostics. Would that be the recovery image for my laptop? I have copied this partition onto an external drive. My question now is what is the next step to do in order to create the recovery disks? Do I boot and try F10? Will that look at the files for recovery that are now on an external drive?
I hear it is possible to create a recovery disk on only one DVD-R for my Vaio laptop. I lost my disks and need to recreate them, but the recovery app fails after a few disks.
What I need to know is what type of DVD-R can I buy that would have the capacity to hold all the recovery disks data?
i just reinstalled winxp sp3 on a sony s3xp, i don't have the vaio installation cd but i did a clean reinstall of windows xp and installed essential drivers but it was quite slow, eg seconds to load a directory, or long pauses during web browsing
now i've installed all the original drivers and utilities and am running without power saving but it's still sluggish, eg the mouse pointer jumps about the screen rather than moves continuously when the cpu is under any load at all