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    Having a hard time with VAIO AR190G

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by AceCobra1, Jul 3, 2007.

  1. AceCobra1

    AceCobra1 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hey all,

    I just bought a VAIO AR190G off ebay. Basically the previous owner had a problem of 'ntldr missing' error which I thought was easy enough to fix - turns out it is not! Anyway, I am not sure if anyone can shed a light on this... Basically, it was initially in raid configuration so i have removed the raid feature... I boot with Win XP CD and get into the 'press enter to setup' then as soon as I press enter, it just says no HDD detected when clearly in the bios, both HDD are seen.

    I also tried Win Vista - it actually installs fine until the final part where by after it tries to boot into windows, i keep getting this 'Windows boot Manager' error which says that some sort of file cant be found - mpio.sys

    I am not sure why Win Vista can see the HDD and Win XP can't

    They both format fine when I do a quickformat but not when I do a full format - both doesn't work. I have tried one of the HDD on my desktop and it actually installed Win XP fine but when i try to boot win XP from my AR after I install XP from my desktop, I keep getting the BSOD. I just hope it isn't some sort of hardware issue - but I have never came accross an issue where the HDD are like this - I bought a new one off a shop and collecting 2moroz so see where it takes me from there...

    I'd really appreciate if someone can share some thoughts or shed a light! :)
     
    AceCobra1, Jul 3, 2007
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  2. AceCobra1

    AceCobra1 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Oh yeah, HDD is detected when I try to install XP from my desktop

    I also had a look at

    http://club.vaio.sony.co.uk/clubvaio/GB/en/forum/viewthread?thread=41647

    and it says

    The challenge is to get the XP-setup to load two drivers from one floppy disk, this requires merging the txtsetp.oem files from both the S-ATA and RAID driver.

    Does that mean I need to boot into a xp then load drivers from xp for the laptop to be able to read those hdds?
     
    AceCobra1, Jul 3, 2007
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  3. bananapudding

    bananapudding Notebook Consultant

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    There is a point in the XP setup at which you press F5 to load 3rd pty disk controller drivers. This is probably your issue.
    I was also wondering if you tried reenabling RAID.
    You can always order the recovery discs from Sony as a last resort.
     
    bananapudding, Jul 3, 2007
    #3
  4. AceCobra1

    AceCobra1 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I am going to try to do this raid thingy... its weird coz i did in on my desktop and xp installed fine! Yeah, I did tried to re enable then disabling raid - even took out one of the HDD to do the job! Nothing worked :(
     
    AceCobra1, Jul 3, 2007
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  5. AceCobra1

    AceCobra1 Notebook Enthusiast

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    AceCobra1, Jul 3, 2007
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  6. titan_psp

    titan_psp Notebook Enthusiast

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    use the recovery dvds
    and everything should be fine
     
    titan_psp, Jul 25, 2007
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