Sony Vaio VGC-V2S Restore problem

[SarahG]

Hi all

We have a Sony Vaio VGC-V2S and a few years back both HDD's were wiped so we went to use the recovery disks we had made but they were corrupted and would not work. We then just installed a fresh copy of XP and that was that, although we lost all the preinstaled software and utilities.

Now we are looking at restoring all the lost software and utilities I have downloaded the Drivers and Utilities files so is it now just a case of reinstalling xp and running the utilities and drivers files for a fresh start, or can the two files be installed in its current state to retrieve the lost utilities ect?

[Blencogo]

Hi SarahG and welcome to Club Vaio.

The first thing to check is to make sure the Recovery Partition on your Hard Drive was wiped. From what you say it probably was but it is worth checking: -

Start -> Right-click on My Computer -> Manage -> Disc Management

Expand the window to the right. Is a Recovery Partition shown and is it not empty? If the Recovery Partition is there then your job will be easy - just press F10 repeatedly when you start your Vaio and see the first Vaio Logo screen. This will start a full recovery of all the original Programs/Applications/Utilities/Drivers. Remember to back up important data as a recovery will format the hard disc and all dta will be lost.

If as you say, the disc was wiped and the Recovery Partition lost, the only way you are going to get the Vaio back to its original configuration is to buy a set of Recovery Discs specific to your model from Sony Support for about £40.

If you still have the recovery discs you made, you could try copying them on another PC.

Although the basic Drivers and Utilities are available as a download, the original Preinstalled Vaio Software like Vaio Zone/Click2DVD/Vaio Media/Sonic Stage Mastering Studio cannot be downloaded. The downloads on the VGC-V2S download page are updates only and require the original software to be installed.