HELP PCV-V1

[Akanksha]

My dinosaur of a computer has finally thrown a strop and stopped working all together.

It does it's POST, does Plug and Play initialisation, then detects hard-drives etc and then doesn't do anything after that. It just stays still.
Although this issue had been happening over the last month after a couple of power on/offs, eventually it would come on . Except that on Wednesday I renewed my Norton Subscription and it updated the system and asked for a restart, after which it has stopped working altogether.

I have already taken a backup so I know I need to reformat my hard drive, but the trouble being that the on-system hard-drive (Matshita -810) stopped working a year ago. And although I had turned into Sony for repair, who apparently replaced it. It still didn't work after that, it doesn't even flash a light on power-up so I am guessing it's completely unusable. I had work to get on with so I just got an external CD-drive which has worked fine so far.

Now to use the recovery disc, I need a CD-rom but I can't see my external CD-ROM listed in the BIOS, does anyone have any idea of how to recover this system using an external CD-drive? In the BIOS, what settings need to be changed?

If anything, I actually have an ipod which could be used as an external hard-drive for rebooting? Does anyone know how to do that?

Any help will be much appreciated. Thank you

[seb21__]

I have already taken a backup so I know I need to reformat my hard drive, but the trouble being that the on-system hard-drive (Matshita -810) stopped working a year ago. And although I had turned into Sony for repair, who apparently replaced it. But it didn't even work after that, it doesn't even flash a light on power-up so I am guessing it's completely unusable. I had work to get on with so I just got an external CD-drive which has worked fine so far.

They say it's repaired but it does not work? I'm lost here. In Germany you get half year limited warranty for the repaired device.

[Akanksha]

They say it's repaired but it does not work? I'm lost here. In Germany you get half year limited warranty for the repaired device.

Actually I was in America at the time of the repair and then i moved back to England and the Sony Customer Service here says that they can't do anything about it. I have a case already open for this but no vail:smileysad:

[kee-lo_]

Hello stranger, how are you? :smileygrin:

Sorry to hear about your VAIO, sounds quite bad. Have you got a floppy drive on there? Or maybe another PC you can network to?

[Akanksha]

I actually don't have a floppy disk drive but I have an ipod which should act as an external hard drive?

I have internet access at work, I could get a laptop from a friend - how would I go about that?

[kee-lo_]

VAIOs can't boot from an iPod, which is annoying!

On bootdisks.com they have a bootdisk which you can boot from a USB device. This would be very handy for you to get the recovery process going.

[Akanksha]

Oh thanks, so do you think I will be able to use an external USB-stick to create a bootdisk and use it to boot up?

But i have noticed that even when I disable all boot-up locations, it doesn't have any impact on the system. i.e it does it's Plug and Play Detection and stops immediately after that. Does that mean the Kernels are corrupted?

Does anyone recommend sending it in to a Sony centre? Or if anyone has used any external repair people who are just as good?

Helpppp........:smileycry:

[kee-lo_]

Problem is that it won't boot from USB sticks

You could send it to VAIO-Link but I hate to see what they'll charge for it.

[Akanksha]

Well I though the most they could charge me for it was around £357 as the highest flat price or something including Parts and Labour...is that not right?

So basically Sony has left me with no option - it's their fault and I will complain!

[kee-lo_]

Well I though the most they could charge me for it was around £357 as the highest flat price or something including Parts and Labour...is that not right?

So basically Sony has left me with no option - it's their fault and I will complain!

Really, who told you that?