I have a Sony Vaio Laptop - exactly 13 months old purchased from local Best Buy.
Last week the hard drive crashed. Took it to Best Buy to replace it and they said they were out of drive but to go down the street and "Fry's could help me out." So went to the Fry's electronics and they replaced the drive. The guy installed Windows Vista on it from his own discs just to make sure it worked. Then wiped the drive clean.
At time of purchase Best Buy had created a set of restore discs to restore the computer back to factory state. I used them one time to reformat the original drive so I know they work (or at least worked). But they will not work with the new drive. I start through the VAIO recovery procedure and it says there is no drive to install it on. The BIOS sees the drive fine. I have an XP disc around and tried to install it but it won't install, saying the same thing - can't find the drive. But I also have a copy of Vista as well and I can start installing that fine - Vista itself sees it and will install without any problems. So I know the drive is working.
I went back to Fry's and he said that it was a restore disc problem. Went back to Best Buy and the guy there (who knew only marginally more than me - scary) told me to get a set of restore discs from Sony. But my thought is those discs will be the same as what they provided to me in the first place. I don't understand this. I am pretty sure that the problem resides in the fact that these installs can't see the SATA drive because there are no drivers available for it. And yet, if I go to install Vista from a Vista disc it will install without any problem. It would appear that I am going to be stuck purchasing a new copy of Vista for this machine unless anyone has some thoughts. This is very frustrating. The guy at Best Buy was just a school kid but the guy at Fry's was a certified technician and I believe he knew what he was doing and he cannot figure anything out other than to order new restore discs from Sony. Does anyone believe that will fix the problem? Or is there some other solution. This is very frustrating.
Last week the hard drive crashed. Took it to Best Buy to replace it and they said they were out of drive but to go down the street and "Fry's could help me out." So went to the Fry's electronics and they replaced the drive. The guy installed Windows Vista on it from his own discs just to make sure it worked. Then wiped the drive clean.
At time of purchase Best Buy had created a set of restore discs to restore the computer back to factory state. I used them one time to reformat the original drive so I know they work (or at least worked). But they will not work with the new drive. I start through the VAIO recovery procedure and it says there is no drive to install it on. The BIOS sees the drive fine. I have an XP disc around and tried to install it but it won't install, saying the same thing - can't find the drive. But I also have a copy of Vista as well and I can start installing that fine - Vista itself sees it and will install without any problems. So I know the drive is working.
I went back to Fry's and he said that it was a restore disc problem. Went back to Best Buy and the guy there (who knew only marginally more than me - scary) told me to get a set of restore discs from Sony. But my thought is those discs will be the same as what they provided to me in the first place. I don't understand this. I am pretty sure that the problem resides in the fact that these installs can't see the SATA drive because there are no drivers available for it. And yet, if I go to install Vista from a Vista disc it will install without any problem. It would appear that I am going to be stuck purchasing a new copy of Vista for this machine unless anyone has some thoughts. This is very frustrating. The guy at Best Buy was just a school kid but the guy at Fry's was a certified technician and I believe he knew what he was doing and he cannot figure anything out other than to order new restore discs from Sony. Does anyone believe that will fix the problem? Or is there some other solution. This is very frustrating.
