Recovery fails to start - both from disks and hard drive partition (VGN-FW31M)

[mardillo28]

I would really appreciate some help on this. Sony Customer Support's solution is to buy new recovery disks for £50 which is a rip-off as I made my own upon purchase and do not believe they are faulty as Sony suggests. I'm using Windows Vista 32bit Home Premium.

Problem:

I have tried to perform a recovery a few times, both from my recovery disks, and from the partition using F10, but neither works. Using Disk 1, I saw the message "Starting Recovery Tools, but it then permanently hung on the Teal coloured screen with white pointer. Recovery from the partition did not even get that far.

Start of problem:

The problem started when my VAIO just hung one day for no reason (I didn't install anything or make any changes) and upon reboot it kept hanging after "Windows is loading files" message appeared. After a few reboot attempts, I took out the battery, and, upon reinsertion, some kind of recovery seemed to initiate (VAIO recovery or some Windows recovery??). The first prompt was for "Language", which I selected, but unfortunately I then turned off the laptop as I hadn't intended to perform a recovery at that stage. This may have corrupted Windows (?)

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I would buy a new set of disks if I thought they would work, but there is no  guarantee they will! And if not, Sony say I will have to send my laptop  to them for repair (on top of the cost of the disks!). All this on top of the €1000+ cost of the laptop!! I am really at a loss as to what to do and stressed out at not being able to recover any of my backed up data from an external hard drive as my old PC has Windows XP and doesn't have the Windows Backup and Restore software.

I am really frustrated with Sony and will never buy a Sony laptop again. With other manufacturers I could at least reformat the hard drive and reinstall software, but Sony doesn't provide any disks. Plus, if recovery fails with your own recovery disks, they blame your disks and demand an exorbitant fee for more disks which should have been provided for free in the first place. And at €0.35/min their customer care is another rip off. A half hour conversation (for which I was on hold for some of it while the agent probably had to check his script or ask a colleague) cost about €12 (£10.50), just to be told to buy new disks. I have no problem in paying for support - but I want a solution in return!!!

Many thanks in advance for any help. I'm at a complete loss as to what to do.

[peshyxp]

Dont waste your money paying someone to change your hard disk, its a relatively simply DIY process. Theres plenty of guidance on the internet and youtube, just search using key words

Re your recovery discs, if you have already burned a set from your laptop then these should work perfectly. Also if you were provided or purchased a set from Sony specifically for your laptop, these will also work

What wont work is another set of recovery discs from a different model to yours even if its an FW model since Sony are very sneaky and put a restriction on which recovery discs can be used with which models ie they only allow like for like replacements

If you can get hold of a copy of WIn7 the best bet would be to do a clean install and then load up the appropriate drivers to make all the shortcut keys and webcam work from the Sony support website

It is a relatively straightforward process, will require some time and there are plenty of guidance on the Sony support users forum

If you do get someone to fit youre hard drive, I wouldnt pay any more than £20 for labour

You can easily purchase the SATA 2.5inch hard drive from number sources eg play.com/ebuyer.com or amazon.co.uk

I would suggest Western Digital drives which have always served me well (but I have noted hard drives have recently nearly doubled in price!!)

Good luck and hope this helps

[mardillo28]

UPDATE:

I finally got round to replacing my hard drive with a Western Digital Scorpio Black 500GB SATA drive. The Recovery Center now starts, however when I select "Restore Complete System" it fails at 2% with Error 333. The web is littered with people who have the same problem after replacing a hard drive. Apparently Error 333 is not described on the Sony support website and  people say that Sony Support are no help and just say to send in the  laptop to them.

It seems that Error 333 means that the Recovery software doesn't recognise the hard drive, maybe due to there being no partitions on the new drive from what I understand.

Any solutions seem to involve running software to create partitions on the new hard drive but I don't see how to get anything onto the hard drive without putting it into another laptop which I don't have !! I guess a clean install is possible but that means buying Windows software and probably not being able to use the Recovery Center in future (??)

Anyone able to help??

[mardillo28]

Further update:

I found an official Sony repair centre in Walkinstown Dublin, who replaced the hard drive for me. However, it has failed twice more in the last year (and the VAIO has barely been used in this time). The first repair involved them having to install the sony recovery disks on to another HD and clone it on to my HD. I was later told that the WD hard drive I purchased may have been faulty all along, which may have explained the Error 333. However, after it failed again the repair centre replaced it with another brand of HD which has now just failed again. I am convinced there is another problem causing the HD failures, however they told me the last time that the HD controller and all else tested fine. I am not convinced.

I have no faith at all in Sony VAIO laptops and Sony have been no help to me. I would never buy Sony again.

Can anyone explain why the HD would keep failing?

[Andrea-Enciso]

I have this 98Y3241 Hard Drive and the same problem.