topic VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM in PCs & Accessories

VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

luk4ss — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 16:21:51 GMT

Hi. The problem is that I've used the update from http://www.vaio-link.com/vu/vu21/vu21.asp?l=en to change my vaio's firmware. I followed all the instructions and this programme announced a sucessfully accomplished mission. So far so good, but when I rebooted my laptop and tried to burn a CD-R it stopped half way through and rejected the CD. Now when I try to read any other CD or DVD it makes strange sounds and nothing happens. I have also tried downgrading the firmware with this tool http://upload.cdfreaks.com/ftools/firmware.exe
and it didn't even change the version of firmware. Same thing happens, so I have no cd-drive..
Please help!

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

BUMPHI — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 17:50:26 GMT

I lost my live tv when i upgraded so i had recover the system you might need to do the same, did you get any recovery discs?

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

luk4ss — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 18:15:27 GMT

I'm afraid I've already tried to recover my system, using Windows restore.. but as a friend of mine told me, firmware is stored in the drive's flash memory, so any changes made on the system wouldn't affect it and this is, unfortunately, true.. So, even though I have these recovery discs I doubt if there is a chance of changing anything this way.
Thanks for your reply anyway.
Cheers mate,
still looking forward for the solution!!
Help!

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

wheresmybeaver — Wed, 20 May 2015 13:50:02 GMT

Hey bud sorry to hear about the trouble..

I just checked the Vaio-Link website, thats the first time I noticed the DVD update. I have an A217M as well, but I don't think I'll be installing this firmware update unless someone can provide a VERY good reason for it.

Did you follow all the guidelines in the Info to the letter? They seem pretty scary; Remove all startup items, hibernation, standby, tasks, network connections etc? Whats this about "user name has to be registered with half-size alphanumeric characters" etc?? And messing around with msconfig? In fairness I dont think many people would be comfortable using this upgrade software if there's any chance of a complete ****-up!

Hope you figure it all out. If you find out anything important, let us know.

David

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

kee-lo_ — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 20:01:17 GMT

You'll have to speak to Sony support on Tuesday, as they'll need to send either a file to fix the firmware or change the hardware at their repair centre.

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

luk4ss — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 13:32:52 GMT

Scary indeed!
<profanity removed by moderator>, seems like I'm the first person to have done this, my god..
I did most of those things they ask for, I killed all the processes that run as start-up ones, there is no standby mode, no hibernation, my username is luk4ss so i guess this should do.. now when the comp starts it says it's in safe mode, so i guess this is caused by removing all these apps. I also tried to flash it back with some other versions of the firmware, no changes whatsoever, it stays on PFS2, so I'm totally screwed, I will ring them up on Tue and they should start praying now 😉
I hope they will have a fix, because I don't fancy sending my baby anywhere, plus I have to work on her 😄
I'm now gonna reboot and see if anything changes with another version of FW.
I think I may easily say that this was the worst Easter Sunday ever!
Thanks for your support guyz!
If anything changes I will let you know immediately!

luk4ss

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

kee-lo_ — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 20:29:05 GMT

Good luck with it.

One final thing you might want to try is doing the update again.

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

wheresmybeaver — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 20:32:35 GMT

It shouldnt be starting in safe mode either though...

Just a thought; I'm not sure if Windows does it automatically or what, but did you go back to msconfig after the firmware upgrade (via Run in the Start menu) and change from Selective Startup back to Normal Startup? I would PRESUME that the firmware upgrade software would do this automatically...

Anyway, a firmware upgrade shouldn't be as difficult to successfully implement as rocket science.. This is Sony after all!

Good luck

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

luk4ss — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 20:48:16 GMT

Ok, I give up, did this upgrade again and PFS2 doesn't want to disappear, I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but using this firmware.exe (http://upload.cdfreaks.com/ftools/firmware.exe) tool is incredibly easy and it does say at the end of the operation: 'DONE!', so I suppose something must be wrong about this PFS2 FW. We'll see on Tuesday.

Safe mode wasn't running because I set it, but because I disabled so many things, presumably system wouldn't be allowed into normal mode because of this, again, to be honest I have no idea why this happened.
And upgrade soft does switch the system to normal mode after modifications have been done.
BTW, do I have to disable everything, everytime I try to up- or downgrade FW? Or was this only the case with this stupid Sony tool?
Anyway, doing the upgrade from PFS2 to PFS2, in other words trying to do it again, is impossible, as Sony disabled this option in their upgrade tool, unfortunately..
Thanks again, I'm going for a drink now, I've had enough now, no more FW upgrades on this computer ever!

luk4ss

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

kee-lo_ — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 20:57:48 GMT

Think I am going to retire to the living room too.

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

marcooz — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 22:35:01 GMT

Sorry to hear about your problem.

I did the upgrade as well and fortunately I can say it worked for me on my A297XP laptop. I followed the instructions and then it asked to reboot and on the startup it redetected the drive and rebooted again. And from then on everything seemed to work fine. I haven't burnt anything on it yet though since then. Maybe I should give that a try soon.

As you already said I can't see how you can fix this apart from flashing it again or talking to support on how to restore the original one. Sorry - Good Luck

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

luk4ss — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:16:36 GMT

Stupid sony service wouldn't answer my phone call!!!
Bloody hell, what was this thirteen hundred spent on?

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

kee-lo_ — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 18:27:38 GMT

Some days I wonder too

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

luk4ss — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:01:06 GMT

Not only I spent 40minutes on the phone in the morning trying to do some weird stuff with different drivers, after which nothing changed. Plus I have to pay for these phone calls, isn't this ridiculous?!?! They should phone me back for the money I paid for this piece of shit! Sorry, I'm only a bit angry, but 1300 pounds isn't really a small sum for a STUDENT! Especially when he has to pay his bills himself! I'm losing my well-established trust to Sony now!!
Then I rang them just after 5pm (lines open till 6!) and spent another HOUR or SO waiting to be transferred to an advisor!
Has anyone experienced anything like this?
Ok, enough about my problems with Sony customer care, I will wake up 8am tomorrow and wait in the queue politely, asking to be served, fuckin hell is this really how things are done nowadays? I expected a little bit more, but maybe I was wrong. We'll see tomorrow.
Maybe anyone has got a different solution? Like another way of changing this faulty firmware? Anything will do, please!

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

kee-lo_ — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:42:40 GMT

Totally understand the frustration - it's really annoying waiting for them to answer and then they put you on hoid while they ask someone else, then they tell you to do something and call back..................... arragh

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

luk4ss — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:07:45 GMT

Even now I have just looked at the e-support webpage where I posted a case for this thread and since my morning phone call it's gone! How come they have deleted it? This company really never ceases to amaze me! I'm puzzled now, honestly, maybe someone wants to buy a superb VAIO, eh? 😕

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

seb21__ — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:12:59 GMT

You can close the CASE.

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

kee-lo_ — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:15:44 GMT

They can close the case - which is a bit annoying too.
Usually you just re-open it and say it was unfinished

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

luk4ss — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:45:13 GMT

The case is not there anymore, but I will post it back there saying it wasn't finished, thanks for this one lads!

Re: VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

luk4ss — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 22:30:12 GMT

No! No! No!
What a fuckin band of twats!
I cannot believe this!
I've just created a new case, spent about 10minutes typing it up all over again after which I only found out that the session has expiered! All I wrote lost, I'm losing grip now, plus when I tried to log in again it gave me a very welcoming answer:

Dear Customer,

Due to some maintainance procedures, the e-Support website is not available from 00:01 until 01:00.
Please try again later.

Regards,
The Support Team

F**K F**K F**K!

What is this supposed to be? It's 11:11pm aaaaaaaaaaa!!!
I'm really gonna throw this computer through the window in a minute if this goes on like this!