My FJ1S vaio just crashed one day and now getting blue screen of death after Win XP splash screen on boot up. It is a generic 'Windows needs to shut down to protect your machine' bla bla bla.
Here is the real problem: when trying to use the recovery disks, or recovery utility it comes up with the error 'Cannot use this utility for your computer. Confirm the model type'. I have successfully used it many times before though. Wierd.
Checking the bios, it says Machine Name and Serial Number are 'RESERVED', which leads me to believe the BIOS is somehow corrupt - shouldn't these be populated? I am not sure as I have never checked before! I assume the recovery utility checks for these details as it is OEM installed software and when it cannot won't boot.
I contacted Sony support who gave me the only option of sending it in for £399! More than the 4 yr old machine is worth!
I think my best solution is to do a clean install of XP as I have the key and could potentially borrow a CD. I would rather have the use of the recovery tool though as it is very useful and has all the pre-installed Sony software, drivers, etc.!
I was thinking of trying to 'hack' the phoenix bios with an editor - maybe too risky?
Firstly, I did not make my own recovery disc before i started using my new laptop. I have been using my laptop for sometimes. Lately, my laptop is running slow and also there is a possibility of virus on my laptop. I want to format my laptop and recover it to the factory setting. What should I do?
Secondly, if I create my own recovery disc now (as a backup) will it have virus on my recovery disc?
When my Vaio TX770P crashed and burned recently , I removed the Toshiba 1.8" HDD1584 (80GB with ATA-100 interface and 50-pin female connector). Does anyone know how to recover the data from this disk drive?
I took a chance and tried purchasing a 1.8" ZIF LIF (iPod) HD Enclosure Case for Toshiba, Hitachi, and IBM Drives. Figured I'd take a shot for $13 + S&H since it advertised an easy USB cable interface. Clearly it was not meant to work with a 50-pin f connector though.
I am getting a Vaio SR and I want to upgrade the harddrive to a 500 gb one i have already. Is there a way to transfer the recovery stuff from the harddrive that comes with the vaio to the new one i am swapping in?
I have destroyed my Sony Recovery File So when i want to press F10 or F11 to go into recovery mode it dont work. I dont have a Recovery Disk and Sony USA wont send it to Europe(the Netherlands) sadly. And Sony Europe says sense the is American we cant find your Recovery or send you one. Can anyone upload there DVD Recovery to Rapid Share If they have any. My Laptop is a vegetable now.My email address is .
I have a Sony Vaio VGN-Z690 with windows vista home premium 64-bits. I created the recovery DVD's and delete the recovery partition after that. Today I needed to format my HD and reinstall everything, and find out that my Recovery DVD's are nor working... well, not all them, just the second one (I copy the DVD's do my HD, and there is an error when I try to copy the archive "p27.sny" in the second DVD... it was bad recorded or something, because the DVD are not scratched...). Can anyone have a similar recovery DVD from sony Z series with this archive?
My laptop is a Sony Vaio VGN-FS115B. When I bought it 4 years ago the operating system was all in German until yesterday when I decided to change it into English. A friend installed me XP Professional, 2002, Pack 3 which naturally resulted to the cancellation of the entire Vaio system (VAIO Zone, VAIO Update etc..), now not being able anymore to control the volume, light from my keyboard etc..My question is: I there a way to recover this Vaio System without having to do the complete recovery which will only take me back to the German operating system.
i have a sony vaio sony vaio vgn fs485b. i need to format it but have no discs. i was told that i could (at bios boot stage) enter teh recovery partiion and here i have a choice to format the machine? is this true, if it is what do i need to press to enter this page?
I've come across these recovery discs that portable1 is selling for the vaio z series:
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i have recently unable to restore my vaio to factory state from both the dvds i created nor from the partition. is it possible for me to use one of these?
do the windows come preactivated? what prevents me from buying the vista ultimate recovery set then? i have vista business.
I just ordered the Sony Vaio FW series. The agent said the notebook don't come with any Windows Vista Home Premium x64 DVD's as back up and i need to burn the recovery disc from the OS once i receive the laptop.
1. Is this the standard practice of shipment.
2. If i am to create recovery disc from the laptop, and then at a later time format and do an install from the recovery back up disk's, does the recovery install the old factory shipped drivers & software by default. If so is there a way to get rid of this.
3. What do i do if i want to do a clean install of the OS with the new drivers from net.
I have purchased this small marvel but no disks were supplied.It has Vista business but at some stage im sure i will have to recover it.can someone please advise where i may get these disks from?
I didn't make the disks when I first bought the computer (not sure why not) but I want to make disks for just in case I need to reformat in the future. What are the steps I need to take to do so? I am using Windows Vista Business.
One of my users has a Vaio SR and is trying to create recovery discs (DVDs) using Sony's tool. Sony's application fails at 24% every time with the following error:
"The disc could not be created.: Missing source folder or files."
It's running Vista and is pretty new, although they repartitioned the drive recently have installed a lot of additional software and may have uninstalled some Sony software. I'm thinking these could be the cause.
If not, any recommendations for third party software that provide similar functionality (full system backup images to disc)?
I have a sony laptop - VGN-660N - every time I boot from the recovery DVD I get the following error:
"Cannot use this recovery disc for this computer. Confirm the model type"
I have the right discs per the label on the discs (discs are labeled for VGN-600 Series), which I purchased directly from Sony. I contacted Sony, who was worthless on the matter.
I am ready to create my recovery dvds but the recovery center seems not to be working properly. When I go to the section "create recovery discs" there is no button there allowing me to start the process. What shall I do?
I finally got my VPC Z with HDD/no DVD today and I thought I'd start up a thread on the subject for those like me who once receiving their Z will be trying to use Vaio Recovery Center to create recovery disks without using a DVD Writer.
Installing Win 7 from a USB stick is fairly well documented on the web but the problem above isn't, certainly not for the VPC Z anyway. I know that it's probably gonna be simpler to just create a bootable USB key/stick and copy the relevant drivers to it and use that (something I'll be doing to get rid of all the crapware sony have preinstalled) but I like having the security of an additional backup solution just in case I royally balls it up.
The main issue (i think) is with Vaio Recovery Center itself, if you try to create the recovery disk the software will complain that no dvd writer can be found. After trying a couple of virtual CD/DVD/BD-ROM/HD-DVD tools I took the advice of TofuTurkey (cheers fella) in the vaio owners thread and tried Virtual CD. I'm happy to report that this has the capability to create a fake drive with various fake media discs and does indeed fool the Vaio software into creating an ISO to the internal hard drive. I setup a DVD+R DL drive and everything went smothly. Vaio Rocovery created a single ISO 5,344,117KB in size.
Seems the next trick is to find a way of creating a bootable USB stick (again there's plenty of info out there concerned with installing Win 7) and then writing the ISO (or contents of?) it to it and filing it away for safe keeping. ZoinksS2k mentioned I should be "sure to set the partition to Active and run bootsect to make it bootable." which is going to be my next step after I've read up a little again on this.
Trying to get rid of these questionably useful programs -- but I don't see entries for them in add/remove programs in the control panel (or for any of the other useless VAIO software packages that come on OEM machines sans "fresh start")
I have just been given a VAIO PCG8A2M (GRX316MP) , i was told "it's broken but if you can fix it yo can have it" so having a quick look at it there's no sign of life on the display but the lights come on and i can here the HDD heads moving about.
Looking a little more i found that all the ram is missing , so now im not sure if its worth buying some ram to see if it works or not ? The lack of ram would prob explain the lack of display but i wonder if i should be getting POST beeps at least, which im not.
So my question is if a VAIO had no ram should (if all else was working) it be getting POST beeps ?
Just performed a successful XP downgrade on my Vaio Z520, but have noticed that on this copy of the Vaio Silver Desktop Theme/Appearance doesn't exist.
I had it on my SZ and loved it over the XP Blue. Is there a way to get it back? I still have the restore discs from the SZ.
I don't know whats the diference (besides the price), between VAIO TZ295N & VAIO TZ395N. Specs in all the websites I've checked say they have exactly the same components: Intel coreduo 1.33Ghz 2GB RAM DVD-RW and 64GB SSD Hardrive. I was wonder if the diference might be in the hard drive interface, with the TZ295N being PATA and TZ395N being SATA.
I'm wondering if the Blu-ray optical drive (Panasonic UJ-232A) of the (old) VAIO Z series will be able to fit into the (new) VAIO Z series? I would really appreciate it if anyone is able to answer my question.
The reason I'm asking is because I'm seriously thinking of selling my VAIO Z690 & just buying the base Sony VAIO Z (VPCZ112GX/S). I may just be able to afford that base model & the icing on the cake will definitely be the UJ-232A drive being able to fit into the (new) VAIO Z series & work.
Am planning to get a sony laptop for me. The design simply rocks I am getting mixed reviews about cw and E series. But i made up my mind to get one.
My budget is aroung 40000rupees. Thats around 800$. So suggest me a better one between these two for occasional moderate and less(mosltly) demanding games. I dont care whether its 14 or 15 inch.
Am looking at lower end versions of both the models.
Only difference is CW uses Nvidia Geforce 310 and the E series uses some Radeon 5000 series one. CW has 14 inch screen whereas E series has a 15.5 inch screen. In the models which i am looking at both have matte finish and both has WXGA:1366 x 768 VAIO Display.
which one should i go for. whether the screen quality will be on par to Inspiron one atleast? ( I dont need HD).
im planning on using the laptop for videos, photoshop and a bit of gaming, maybe even a bit more gaming :-)
The Vaio F Series only has 330M Nvidia Graphics Card with i7QM and up to 8GB of Ram and up to 256GB SSD.
The E Series has ATI 5650 (a less powerful version, reduced clock speed) combined with a i5 520M with up to 6Gb of Ram and up to 500GB of HDD ? Why can i not choose SSD ?
if I can use the AC Adapter of a Vaio TT on the Vaio Z. The standard AC Adapter that comes with the Vaio Z is of 19.5V and the one for the Vaio TT is of 16V, which I don't know if it's enough for the Vaio Z to function properly or if there could be any problem or damage. Both machines have batteries of 10,8V.
I have an undervolted Vaio Z by the way (last multiplier at 0.9875) so I don't know if this could help in any way for my Z to work ok with the TT AC Adapter.
