[den01]

Hi,

As always, I think you’ll be able to help me…

My daughters friend from the uni got the new laptop seven days ago. As she explained to me, she was trying to make the second partition on 200gb hd, and eventually everything “disappears”… and hour ago I got the laptop so maybe I can rescue it…

First thing: when you switch on, first pop up Sony screen and than “Operating system not found” – and that’s it…

However, I can read the details (from BIOS) when press F2 before that, and the details for Boot order on Boot tab are:
1: USB Optical Drive (*)
2: i.LINK Optical Drive (*)
3. Internal Optical Drive
4: Floppy Disk Drive (*)
5: USB Flash (*)
6: USB Hard Disk Drive (*)
7: Internal Hard Disk Drive
8: Network
Excluded from boot order:
: i.LINK Hard Disk Drive (*)

This above is exactly how it shows - as you can see there are a lot of (*) – and the explanation for (*) is: *: External drives are available when the External Drive Boot is set to Enabled.
And on Advance Tab:
- Network Boot: [Disabled]
- External Drive Boot: [Disabled]

There is also on the EXIT tab option for “Get Default Values” – but not do anything till adviced (she was telling me that she was “playing” with bios as well when laptop died – “just to see how it goes…”)

I have few PC’s and laptop’s, and in the past was able to sort out quite a few comp’s, but always with XP (and before with ME, 2000, 98, 95), and I am confident working with this; but this is first time I have one with Vista…

Few details about laptop (details from bios and some labels on laptop:
Sony vaio (model PCG-6Q1L), intel centrino duo, 2048MB, 200GB HD, with Vista Business OEM


I am not gona do anything until you guys advice me… so please any suggestion is welcome:
- she didn’t receive any CD’s with the laptop…
- I have my XP pro SP2 CD – so if necessary for the boot, please advice…
- if I have to boot with my XP cd, can I recover her vista (probably yes, but as I have said, this is my first vista, and don’t want do anything maybe stupid that can make situation worst – hmm. Anyway, how it can get worst than this…)

Thank you for the help.

Regards,

Den

I’ll be online all the time, so will be able to act immediately on any response… thank you

[Advertisements]

Hi den01...

If we're lucky, we might be able to access the recovery partition on this machine.

Start the machine and as soon as you see the Sony splash screen, press the F8 key...you should get an "Advanced Boot Options" screen.

Select to Repair Your Computer and press Enter. Does a "System Recovery Options" window open?

If you are able to access this partition, there may be an option to restore to a backup image...providing the feature has been enabled and there is an available image on the drive. If there is no image available, you should be able to restore the system as it was originally installed. You will likely loose any and all data on the machine with this method.

wannabe1

[wannabe1]

Hi den01...

If we're lucky, we might be able to access the recovery partition on this machine.

Start the machine and as soon as you see the Sony splash screen, press the F8 key...you should get an "Advanced Boot Options" screen.

Select to Repair Your Computer and press Enter. Does a "System Recovery Options" window open?

If you are able to access this partition, there may be an option to restore to a backup image...providing the feature has been enabled and there is an available image on the drive. If there is no image available, you should be able to restore the system as it was originally installed. You will likely loose any and all data on the machine with this method.

wannabe1

[den01]

Hi wannabe1,

Thank you for reply.

Nothing happens on F8.

I can do only F2 and with it I can go to boot order, which is in my first post.

With f2 I can go to bios, and there is, among others, "advanced" tab with:
- Network Boot: [Disabled]
- External Drive Boot: [Disabled]

No problem for data - laptop is new and "empty"...

Regards, Den

I'll be online now all the time...

[den01]

Hi there…

I have started xp install on it (just to see how it goes with the partitions), and on the part where the setup ask for the “partition where to be installed”, I can see this – I’ll write exactly how it is on the screen
Setup…as usually for xp setup, few lines – press enter, press c pressd…; and than:
190780 MB Disk 0 at ID 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]
- F: Partition 1 [NTFS] 6482 MB < 5460 MB free>
- C: Partition 2 [Unknown] 49999 MB <49999 MB free>
- D: Partition 3 [Unknown] 134293 MB <134293 MB free>

Please not that I have stopped installing the XP, until further instructions...

Is it possible to recover the vista from, obviously only one possible drive F (although 1 GB in there doesn’t sound a lot…)…if yes, would you please advice me how I can do that…

Also, I have found the model here:
http://esupport.sony...teType=Original

As I can see there is all software which came with the laptop, but I cannot see the Vista there…

If I install temporarily xp (just to start up the laptop…) haw can I get the Vista (at the back of the laptop is OEM key)…

I will appreciate any help as soon as possible (girls are leaving for the uni, and will be great if I can sort this out somehow…). Thank you very much for any advice…

Regards,

Den

Edited by den01, 22 June 2007 - 06:25 AM.

[den01]

Hi…
I will appreciate any comment and advise on the problem I have posted above…
Up to now, I didn’t do anything yet…

But, they need laptop and I am not quite sure what I can do:
- is there any way to reinstall vista (as I have said, she has OEM vista code at the back of the laptop…)

Thanks, regards,

Den