Laptop guru's please help a noob

Hi Guys first post here and that's right you guessed it i have a problem.

I bought a vaio fe41z around a year ago now and when I bought it vista was completely unuseable to me as most of my music production software did not seem too happy with it. So, I made the restore discs and went about installing a fresh install of xp onto it which worked fine. It is now a year down the line and I'm currently selling said computer and intended on just reinstalling xp and handing it over no problems. However, now that I've reinstalled xp the wireless lan is now not working (something that was never a problem on my last install of xp)

So basically what i would like to know is whether there is a quick fix to get the drivers for the wireless which you guys think (or know) will definitely work OR a quick guide of how to reinstall vista using the recovery discs that i burnt from the vaio recovery tool before I installed xp the first time?

Ideally though a quick fix of how to get the wireless working again would be great as xp is functioning properly and the only reason why the person buying it wants a laptop is to surf the net via wireless.

I'm a complete novice when it comes to computers so any help will be much appreciated.

 

I don't own FE and is not using Windows XP, but try to download the drivers for Windows XP from this website. It contains all the drivers for XP.

 

To restore from the recovery discs simply boot from DVD 1. Make sure you back up all you data first as the entire hard disk will be formatted. Everything will be put back to the way it was you took delivery of the laptop. No need to download drivers etc.

For wireless drivers, I guess you model has an Intel WLAN adapter. Download the driver directly from intel.

Or you can get all FE4 drivers and utils from this Sony FTP site. However, if your laptop was originally installed with Vista then they will be Vista drivers.

There is no FE4 model listed on this XP drivers FTP site

 

Thanks alot guys!! It's much appreciated.

Mujja, just to clear up things while I've got you here. On restart I hit f2 then select boot from disc? then insert dvd 1 and that will install vista again? Or will I need another copy of vista to install? I'm sorry for the rather obvious questions that the more experienced will automatically know but like I say I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to things like this.

 

Do you still keep the recovery partition? I think pressing F10 during the Sony Vaio logo should take you to the recovery partition where you can restore to factory settings.

 

Chris, yes, just insert DVD1. It's a nice util and explains each step.

Don't worry, it won't just boot and start formatting. It will give you all options available to you and ask you if you're sure befor it starts doing anything. Boot from it and have a play around and come back and ask questions if you have you before you start.

 

Good point, if the recovery partition is still on the disk then you can restore from that. It's exactly the same app and contains the same files as the DVDs. It will be quicker and no disc swapping too.

If you did remove the recovery parition you can choose to restore that too when you re-install Vista. It will use up around 7GB of disk space but the benefits are you can do a full or paritial install of apps when on the move and leave the recovery DVDs in a safe place.

 

Great stuff!!!! Once again thanks so much for your quick replies. Will give the f10 thing a go as I'm not sure if the partition is still there when I get home and if not then I will use the dvd's.

Many thanks to both of you!!!!

Chris