[theleech]

Hi. I had two laptops, both of which are broken. Both are Sony Vaio PCG series. One was diagnosed with a corrupt hard drive but I have figured out that the graphics card is either the problem or another problem. The other just wont turn on, i think a connector is broken somewhere inside.
So I've bought another laptop from ebay, (another Sony Vaio PCG model) good condition and everything working except it doesn't have a hard drive. I figured since they are all so similar either hard drive would do. Unfortunately it hasn't worked like that Its flashing up "operating system not found" just as it was without the hard drive in. I have a few questions.

1. Is it likely the hard drive is compatible? It seems to fit in the laptop alright but I'm not 100% sure. The old laptop models were PCG-FR315M and PCG-K115B, this one is PCG-GR215SP.

2. With the hard drive in, I tried to get into the bios to make it boot from an XP recovery disk. Turns out the bios has a password which I can't get access to. Are there any ways of bypassing this password? (without removing the CMOS battery)

3. If I have to remove the CMOS battery, where would I find a disassembly guide? I can't find any with a google search the laptop model is PCG-GR215SP.

Thanks in advance, you guys are always great

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Hi there

First thing I can tell you is that the drives should be compatible. The error message 'No operating system found' may just mean that either an OS is not installed or that the boot sector is corrupt. Normally I would tell you to check that the drive is recognised in the bios but you can't access yours to find out.

Try the following before you do anything else.

Power on the system. If it displays the Vaio logo, try pressing ESC to get rid of it. If it disappears, you will hopefully be able to see the list of drives detected during the POST test. See of the hard drive is there.
Also try pressing the F12 key just after powering on (press it a few times) to see if this brings up the boot menu. If it does, it should allow you to select the CDROM drive as the boot device. F12 works for most modern laptops but not sure about your one as it's so old.

[Samm]

Hi there

First thing I can tell you is that the drives should be compatible. The error message 'No operating system found' may just mean that either an OS is not installed or that the boot sector is corrupt. Normally I would tell you to check that the drive is recognised in the bios but you can't access yours to find out.

Try the following before you do anything else.

Power on the system. If it displays the Vaio logo, try pressing ESC to get rid of it. If it disappears, you will hopefully be able to see the list of drives detected during the POST test. See of the hard drive is there.
Also try pressing the F12 key just after powering on (press it a few times) to see if this brings up the boot menu. If it does, it should allow you to select the CDROM drive as the boot device. F12 works for most modern laptops but not sure about your one as it's so old.

[theleech]

Thanks alot for your reply I was pressing esc to get rid of the logo, and ironically it brought up the boot menu. So I've got it booting from a CD whilst recognising the hard drive. That's really all I needed, to know it was possible. Now I have a different problem. As I said, it was bought off ebay, and because of this I don't have the original windows disk. I do have a COA on the bottom though, with a validation code. Can I do anything with this to make it genuine?
I know they can't be talked about on GTG but I obviously wanna avoid keygen/crack programmes.

[Samm]

No problem.

All you need to do is check on the COA label to see which verison of XP it's licensed for. Probably either XP Home OEM or XP Pro OEM.

Once you know that, you can get a copy of XP - see if you can borrow one from a friend. It must be the EXACT same version though i.e Home if licensed for Home, or Pro if Pro etc, plus it must be OEM, not retail or corporate. If it asks for your product key during the install, then obviously enter on one of your COA.

A lot of OEM installations do not require you to enter the key during installation but they do require you to activate XP afterwards. If you've not had to enter the product key, then it will attempt to activate using the wrong key so you will need to register the correct key first. Normally this can be done by choosing to activate windows by telephone, then selecting the option to change the key. See the link below for full instuctions:


Changing product key

[theleech]

Ok, all done thanks alot for the help.