Bricked Sony Vaio

[o0Brandnewcolony]

Hello once again.

This is a Sony Vaio PCG-792L.

It was given to me in pretty rough shape. The O.S. (xp sp2) environment is completely useless. It's been a long time since I have seen a computer with this much malware.

With a normal boot, there are countless popups and the start menu is disabled, as is taskmanager or running any programs for that matter.

I booted into safe mode and everything seemed fine, so I did a virus scan. Came up with 4, 2 Trojans and 2 Worms. AVG deleted them no problem. But when I booted back up it was pretty much the same story, just not as bad.

Anyhow, I decided to just reformat it with TinyXP. I tried a full (#1) install, and after formatting to 100% it said error formatting HDD.

Now, when I boot all I get is an "error loading operating system" message. And although the BIOS Is set to boot from CD drive first, it now fails to do so.

What can I do?

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Bricked Sony Vaio

Did you try Using the Hotkey to get the boot menu to come up to Choose CD as the boot device? Some boards it is F8, some F12, some F2. That should at least get you to be able to boot the cd again and reformat and start over

I would suggest grabbing a Ultimate Bootcd, and try one of it's formatting tools instead of the XP one, then maybe you can do the quick format and reinstall

[o0Brandnewcolony]

Re: Bricked Sony Vaio

I will make a new bootdisk and try that.

Currently though, it is set to boot from CD drive first, and it simply won't.

Maybe a different bootdisk may change things, but it seems like there's more to it.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Bricked Sony Vaio

Well I have seen that happen on a few setups, but using the Boot Device Hotkey at startup (Like when you normally hit the enter BIOS key) almost always worked

[o0Brandnewcolony]

Re: Bricked Sony Vaio

I'll give it a try in about 4 hours and get back to you.

Much appreciated.

lawton

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Bricked Sony Vaio

Ahh, you are not at the PC then eh?

Ok, then good luck with it

[o0Brandnewcolony]

Re: Bricked Sony Vaio

I've managed to install the TinyXP edition of Windows.

The only thing is, the screen is only a small square in the middle of the monitor.

Also, when I went to the Sony website to get drivers to try and fix this issue, I get the same message with each driver. It's incompatible with my product, even though the drivers are meant for this exact model number.

Could this be a problem with the edition of windows I installed?

I am going to try another version, a full one this time; perhaps it will make a difference.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Bricked Sony Vaio

Could be about the drivers. But I am not sure, can you extract the drivers and manually install them? You should be able to go that route

As for the tiny screen, Hmm did you adjust the res.? I guess you may not be able to until you get a driver though if it is onboard GFX

Link me to one of the drivers you are trying to install so I can see if it can be installed how I am thinking

[casecutter]

Re: Bricked Sony Vaio

No offense, but try a legal copy of Windows. Then you will be able to install drivers. Sony's crapware can sniff out most cracked illegal copies of Windows and will prevent you from installing any drivers.

[o0Brandnewcolony]

Re: Bricked Sony Vaio

Strange.

I am not able to find the drivers any longer.

This Sony website is really getting to me, it keeps routing me to unlocked drivers even when I click the locked driver button.

Thanks.

[o0Brandnewcolony]

Re: Bricked Sony Vaio

Everything seems to be working out.

Tried another edition of Windows, the drivers took fine.

Looks like it's all good now, almost done with them. Already fixed the resolution issue.

Thanks!