RECOVERY DISKS

[DelphineLopez]

I lost the wallet containing the recovery disks for my Vaio notebook which I bought only 3 months ago. How can I replace them?

[Blencogo]

Hi DelphineLopez and welcome to Club Vaio!

If your Vaio is only 3 months old, you will almost certainly have a Recovery Partition on your hard drive.

You will need 2 DVD-R discs to make your recovery discs.

Click on Start>>All Programs>>Vaio Recovery Tool>>Vaio Recovery Utility>>

Ater a short while you will be asked if you want to recover your system or if you want to make a Media Recovery Disc. Choose to Make a Recovery set of discs and follow the instructions.

What model of Vaio do you have?

[Thalamus.]

Hi DelphineLopez

Welcome to Club Vaio,

Here is the Sony guide for creating a recovery disc set if as Blencogo mentioned you have a Hard Drive Recovery system.

[DelphineLopez]

Thanks blencogo & Thalamus,

Unfortunately, my problem that I did save the recovery partitions on 2 dvd after I bought it. So the partitions do not exist anymore.
But I lost the DVDs themselves.
How can I remplace them?

I have a VGN-SZ1HP

Thanks

Delphine

[Blencogo]

Hi Delphine,

Unless you physically reformatted your hard drive after you made the original discs, the Recovery Partition should still be there on your HDD and you should be able to make another set of discs. Try tapping F10 when you start up your Vaio and see if the recovery wizard starts.

If you have deleted the Recovery Partition and lost the discs, then you will have to buy a replacement set of discs from Vaio-Link as the discs are unique to each Vaio and will not work on another PC. They will charge you for these - the last I heard they were about £55.

[DelphineLopez]

Thanks for following up Blencogo.

I had some problems with Norton and I had to use the recovery disks at the time to recover the laptop to its original state.
So I am pretty sure that the recovery partitions won't there.

The Vaio recovery utility says "cannot start vaio recovery utility because the recovery partition have been deleted".

Can I produce the equivalent of the recovery disks with Norton Ghost for example?

Or have I got no alternative that getting hold the recovery discs from Sony at quite a hefty price if your information is correct.

Thanks

D

[Blencogo]

Hi Delphine,

Sounds like the expensive option of ordering new discs is the only simple way forward for you!

If you just want to make absolutely sure that your Recovery Patrition had been deleted, Click on 'Start' and right-click on 'My Computer'. Click on 'Manage' and in the Computer Management Screen click on 'Disc Management'.

You will see the partitions on your hard drive in the right hand box. You will see 'Vaio C;' and 'Vaio D:' and also your Recovery Partition if you still have it.

What exactly do you want to recover? You can download the Drivers and the Sony Utilities without charge from VAIO-LINK but if you need to recover your operating system or bundled applications you will have to buy the discs.

However, if your Vaio is working correctly now and you just want to back it up in case of a future disaster, you could make an image of your hard drive using something like ACRONIS TRUE IMAGE 9.0. I would avoid Norton Ghost as it has some known incompatibilities with some Vaios.

[DelphineLopez]

Hi Blencogo,

I have done as you said. The partition space is visible. Capacity 6.99 GB and Free Space 6.99 GB, therefore, it seems like the space is there but empty.

Acronis is at 49$, so as you said, the easiest is to get the copies from Sony.

What is happening with the recovery partition space? There are currently 7 GB unutilised. Is it lost space?

Thanks so much for all your help.

Delphine

[Thalamus.]

Hi Delphine,

Once you have the new recovery disc from Sony you can reclaim the recovery partition by following this procedure