[gwhiz]

Ive got a sony/vaio PCVRS620G heres the problem from the begining, it wouldnt stay on,
kept rebooting over and over, tried safe mode and so forth but no good, so decided to reinstall/recovery the windows software with the recovery media kit.. that was made when first got pc new in about 2004..its a 2 disc set on this pc, start-up recovery disc & recovery disc 1 of 1 ..

I installed the 1st one & it brought pc up to the vaio recovery wizard screen, then instructed to install the second disc being recovery disc 1 of 1, after installing it, it began to partition & restore drive,and during that time I lost power (electricity) not funny!!!

Now evry time I try to do the recovery it will do the 1st disc then instruct to put in the second disc & it starts to partition & then begins to restore drive,it goes anywhere from 25% up to 75% on restore drive progress bar till it stops with the following errors(one error per time I've tried,over 20 plus times, I keep trying)

[*]Error: Incompatible Image in use (this error is the most seen and showed the last 5 times Ive tried)
[*]Error: stream reading error
[*]Error: diskpart.exe is not a valid win 32 application
[*]Error: only part of the read process memory or write memory request was completed
[*]Error:code:-1 error occured while partitioning

I have reset the Bios to default as per sony instructions,but it didnt help none, Ive done this about ten times..
I do know the last several times it does go past the partition (ie: *partition --Working... completed)
then pops the error during restore drive.. (ie:*restore drive...error)

any help or wisdom at all would be most appreciated
thank you in advance,
Brian/gwhizz

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Try to take the disk out and install it as slave on another computer. Format the disk using the other computer (right-click the failed disk's icon in "My Cmputer" and choose "format"). If successfull place the disk back in the VIOS and start the recovery again.

[The Skeptic]

Try to take the disk out and install it as slave on another computer. Format the disk using the other computer (right-click the failed disk's icon in "My Cmputer" and choose "format"). If successfull place the disk back in the VIOS and start the recovery again.

[gwhiz]

Thank you for helping,I do appreciate it very much..
too this is my sisters pc,& I was trying to help her out by fixing it,so I dont want to mess up anything worse than it already is as far as damaging somthing on it,,,
I have a few concerns and questions before I proceed If you would,Please..

Is their any other options I can try before formating it as you said,if not what issues do I need to be aware of as far as any compatibility with it and my pc's ribbon connecters pins fitting,
and any OS software issues, if hers has a different windows OS than mine,I think they may be the same though
Also will it keep the sony vaio wizard on it or do I reinstall it as well,if so in what manner and order do I do this, because I've never did this before so I realy need some walk through steps,if possible

too I did put my xp backup copy in hers and it did take me to blue screen and then spent a while loading files . When it was finished it listed a few options, mainly “Press ENTER to set up Windows XP.” Press Enter or Return,so I wasnt sure the proper procedure since its got the sony wizard stuff and my pc dont,didnt know if it would work right.so I exited and tried her disc again but it didnt help any,I thought it might have helped since it read through the files on my copy,I did that prior to first posting this issue..
Also If needed I can acsess one of the recovery cds on my pc to find out which windows OS it has with guidence Im not sure where to look on it/under which file...the other disc is on a dvd & I cant acsess it I dont have a dvd on my pc, only cd drive..

thanks,gwizz

[The Skeptic]

You shouldn't worry about anything. What I suggested is to format the disk on the other computer and wipe it clean. The XP installation itself will be done on the original computer with the recovery disks. The XP version on the other computer is irrelevant.

If both computers have IDE disk controllers (large flat cables, 80 or 40 leads) then there shouldn't be any incompatability. To make it simplest, disconnect the cd drive(s) from the other computer and connect the affected disk to the second from the end cable connector. Jumper the disk as slave. This will ensure that the other computer will not try to boot from the "bad"disk. After you format the disk take it out, jumper it as master and set it in it's original position.

I am not sure what you were trying to do in the last paragraph of your post. Don't do anything with the recovery disks on the other computer. It should only be used to reinstall XP on the affected disk after it was formatted on the other computer and brought back to it's original position.

[gwhiz]

Ok, the bad disc is in my pc as slave, it did format it and now on my computer management screen its showing it (the bad disc) to have one primary partition At 5.01 Gb NTFS healthy(active) & 144.04 Gb Unallocated....

So is this ready to go back in the other pc now,or do I need to delete the partition on it or anything else before I reinstall it ?

Thanks,gwhizz

[Ztruker]

5.1GB is very, very small for a XP boot partition. I would recommend an absolute minimum of 10GB with 15GB being better. That allows room for growth in the future, which is a given with XP.

[gwhiz]

Okay,Im lost here..I'm not clear on the partition and it already being active healthy, does that mean something is on that part of disk like the master boot record?

and what about the other 144 Gb's that reads as unallocated
in other words do I put it( the disc) back in like it is and the recovery disc will make another partition for xp?

or do I delete or expand the partition to make it 15 gb,or the whole disc is to be partitioned, or does the recovery disc make the partion once its back in the original pc?

I hope I'm making since here,because Iv read so much Im overloaded..
and getting confused

thanks

[The Skeptic]

What is the origin of this 5.1 gig partition? Did you create it, and if yes, to what purpose? Is it a "hidden" partition which may be used to store XP for recovery purposes? What letter is assigned to the 5.1 gig when the disk is set as master on primary IDE channel of the affected computer? Does it contain any material?

The 140 gig is an unallocated, therefore not formatted space on the disk. It's very important to understand what the small partition is. Let's solve this and the rest will be easy.

[gwhiz]

Well I put it in my pc and clicked on it to format,and after formating thats what the sceen showed in my computer.

when I formated I did it Like this:
Right-Click on My Computer icon
then clicked Manage,
then in Computer Management I Selected Storage,then I selected Disk Management, then I clicked on hard drive(F:) and clicked format then small screen appeared and best I remember it had a selection for type of files and I didnt change it,it was on ntfs,and two boxes under that one was compress and somthing else but I did not check them,I just click ok then it began to format in that small box on left side of screen and the 144 gb's was to the left,side by side...
when it was done thats what was on my screen,thats all I did,...

(Did you create it) I didnt creat it knowingly if I did,I dont belve I did

(Is it a "hidden" partition ) I dont know,thats what I was wondering or if it was part of sonyVAIO, on it for recovery..

(What letter is assigned to the 5.1 gig) I dont know how to find that out ,need help on that

I did go ahead and put it in the affected pc after reading post on clean install from in forum thinkinig that xp on setup wuold take care of the partition size if I understood right

anyhow 1 st disc in and it showed vaio logo then black screen saying starting vaio recovery utility powered by windows..........please wait.........
then blue screen with the vaio recovery wizard it ejected disc said install disc 1 I did then select recovery options,i selected c drive recovery , it stated it "system drive to small or may not exist small go back selct custom recovery to perform complete system recovery, & I did and it patition then stared to restoedrive and 40% or so poped the incompatible Image


if you need anything else or answer to those 2 other qeustions let me know,just help me to answer correctly,I'm trying and learning I hope
thanks

[gwhiz]

my thought/guess on the 5Gb, would that be what was on it b4 it crashed,all the software, files, programs & ect.. cause my pc is has a 40 gb & Ive got about 30gb of free space on it and Im running XP,So how much does XP require,I read somewhere at least 1.5 or 2 gb...I dont know..

[The Skeptic]

I am not sure what's going on but one thing is sure: XP cannot use the 144 GB because this space is not allocated and cannot be used in it's present state. In Disk management right click the unallocated space, create a logical drive, format it and start xp recovery again.

[gwhiz]

so when I create a logical drive in the unallocated space , and format it just like you say, the 5gb will stay like it is or will they be put together when I do as you stated?just so I'll know what to expect..

to the 5gb & 144gb split could be the result from the power going out the first time I tried this the other night when all my problems started and it was inturupted in the middle of restoring the drive..
But I'll do and get back with the outcome,may be tommorow,thanks I do apreciate your help

[The Skeptic]

I looked in Sony's technical support and they are not clear about the recovery procedure (The link to your specific model is not responding). I can't figure out whether the samall partition was used to store xp or not. Please right click tthe small"local disk" icon in My Computer, click properties and see how much of the space is free.

One thing I am sure, however, is that the 144 GB must be made into a logical drive (one drive or more) and formatted before anything can be done with it.

[gwhiz]

Okay,It reads
free space 0 bytes
used space 0 bytes

sorry for delay, I had to take apart pc's and put back in my pc.

[The Skeptic]

Take the disk back to a healty computer and in "disk mangement" delete the 5GB partition. You should see now all the disk volume as unallocated. Now create a primary partition of 50 GB and format it. Next, create a logical drive from the volume that is left and format it. At the end you should see both partitions, each marked as "healthy". Now take the disk to your computer and try the recovery.

Obviously you can create the partitions in different sizes, or even leave it as one partition of about 150GB.