Vaio HDD Crash... XP bootable CD

[PPRuNeUser0211]

Right, minor faff/crisis

Sony Vaio SZ-1 latop, windows XP installed from new (about 2 1/2 yrs ago! I know I know...)

For those of you who are less familiar with Vaios, Sony staunchley refuse to provide backup DVD/CDs, but give you a nice backup partition on your HDD taking up 6gig of space. Being the good boy I am, backup discs duly made, but following several international moves, duly lost! Thoughtfully, I backed up the backup partition to my external HDD just in case of total FAFF! Then decided that I really needed the 6 gig of space on the lappie HD so wiped the backup from that and configured it as an extra partition.

Config of the HDD - 1 x 6gig backup partition, now in use as free space
1 x 35gig normal daily use partition (previously C:)
1 x 30gig partition full of entirely legal music (D:)
8mb of unusable space......

So, anyhow, turned the laptop on today & voila... "no operating system found". Dug out old and dusty Windows XP CD from a previous life. Appears to be non-bootable. So dug out bootable Win 98(!) CD which will boot to DOS (old skooool;) just fine. Swopped out CDs and tried XP disc, "setup cannot run from MS-DOS" or words to that effect.

Win 98 won't install as it appears to be having mega issues with the different partitions! (recognises the 8meg unusable (under XP)as c: and will happily try and format it, but 8mb no use to man nor beast. It's then (I guess) recognising some or the rest of the HDD as D:, but can't cope with it as it's NTFS formatted. The DVD drive is recognised as E:, which is apparently causing problems as the setup doesnt appear to cope with the fact it's not running from D:.

So. anyhow, several possible solutions I can see!

1: Make recovery discs from the backup of the partition I have... any thoughts?
2: Make bootable XP CD/DVD... any thoughts?
3: install new clean hdd and try again with 98, then upgrade to XP after that using disc I already have.

Anyhow, suggestions on a postcard! Dont think the HDD in the laptop at the moment has had a major failure, just suspect minor faff, so reckon if I can get a modern-ish version of chkdsk or similar working on it, I'll be able to get an XP install disc to recognise it and install...

[mixture]

Sony staunchley refuse to provide backup DVD/CDs

Erm, they do actually. You just need to know who to ask. :ok:

I know someone who wiped their Sony with whilst messing around, and to cut a long story short, was unable to access the restore partition. CD was dispatched from Sony with only payment of shipping charges required.

Have you tried logging a support call ? I seem to recall being told normal routes were used, no special masonic handshakes were required ..... :cool:

[PPRuNeUser0211]

Mixture, yes will be giving that a try (my "staunchley provide" was in reference to the original lappie as shipped). Am just very impatient!

[mixture]

Ah yes, I agree with you there.

CDs are cheap to buy, and cheap to duplicate, I fail to see why certain [cough.... Sony] manufacturers, fail to provide them in the box.

By the way, if you run into issues, I'll see if I can track down that person to see if they remember the process used....but I reckon you'll be ok.

[Parapunter]

Sounds to me like a dead hdd. Have you tried to run the xp cd in another machine to verify that it's ok?

[PPRuNeUser0211]

Have been in touch with Sony and they want 35 quid for the privelege of having a copy of the system restore discs... Am tight fisted and definitely not paying that.

Have discovered a webpage that has a boot cd that uses your windows XP cd to create a bootable installation disc. Will be trying that on return from work...

UBCD for Windows (http://www.ubcd4win.com) is the site