sony vaio factory restore problem
January 28th, 2020
-he installed windows 7 32 bit, which some drivers won’t work (since sony only has 64 bit drivers for his laptop)
-I saw a windows.old folder and windows.old.0000
-when i did a system restore (recovery partition off hardrive)
it restores to windows xp instead (so i’m guessing he installed xp before the win7 32bit)
1.which one of the folder is it restoring from (windows.old or windows.old.0000)
2. how do i get it to restore his factory window7 64bit and not window xp?
3.i’m currently in windows xp. i can’t see the windows.old & old.0000 folders with the windows xp restore. can i get back to the windows 7 either 32 or 64 bit
basically he want to restore it back to factory reset with windows 7 64bit
If the drive was never repartitioned, most Sony Vaio’s have a recovery partition. F10 on the boot should allow you to recovery to factory.
Regarding windows.old / old.0000 – these are created when you upgrade windows. These are not recovery images – the folders just contain the system files on the previous install. If you provided the model # etc, you might get direction to where the drivers can be found.
When I did the f10 recovery, it automatically recovered into windows xp, not win 7
Then the computer came with XP and not Windows 7. F10 loads the Sony factory recovery. If you let us know what the laptop model is, I’m sure the drivers can be found for win7.
It sounds to me that XP was the default OS and not Win7!
I’d say either he installed Win7 64bit himself or it was the work of the previous owner (if it’s second hand) Anyways, If you want it to run Win7, Your gonna have to install it manually!
Direct links:
Win7 Ultimate With SP1 32bit (English)
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http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59463.iso
Win7 Ultimate With SP1 64bit (English)
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http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59465.iso
Take your pick. 64BIT in general is preferred if there’s 4GB RAM or more.
Vista drivers are Win7 compatible btw (in case there’s 32bit ones for that)
Anyways, You should burn it with imgburn (using the write image file to disc option)
or put it on a flash drive with M$ Win7>USB Tool. Links:
http://www.imgburn.com
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool
Your gonna have to boot from it, So make sure you set the boot order in BIOS accordingly!
After your done, Just use Windows Loader to activate it:
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/24901-Windows-Loader-Current-release-information
Extract all files to the same folder, Right click the activator and select Run As Administrator
The rest is easy enough. Get the needed drivers from Sony’s website (preferably in advance)
I figured the computer came with windows 7 since he bought it at best buy and there’s a coa sticker with serial on the bottom of the laptop for windows 7 professional and there’s only windows 7 64 bit drivers for his laptop model on Sony website
With XP being the system image on a F10 restore – Sony definitely had XP as the default….. unless …. was it a Sony program that started on F10 and led you through the restore? Maybe someone had wiped out the sony restore and put on something like Acronis instead.
Regardless, like Roberto has said, you’ll have to install a fresh win7. I would suggest this in any case. The Sony restore also restores all of their “helpful” software including trials etc. which you definitely won’t want.
Ok. One more question. Can I use the serial on the bottom of the laptop to activate/update it?
You should be able to use it. Only one way to tell – give it a try