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Problems w/ Vaio R505

Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by rda1959, Jul 22, 2009.

rda1959 Newbie

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I have a Sony Vaio R505 (bought in 2001) that came w/ Windows ME. In 2004, I had 256 MB RAM added & upgraded to XP Home edition (OEM, incl. service pack 1a). It has never really run quite right since then, and I'm now wondering if this upgrade was a bit more than it could handle... Now it's 5 yrs later, & I need to do a fresh reinstall using the recovery disks that came w/ the Vaio. I'm going through all the disks associated w/ the Vaio & noticed that the XP Home edition is actually a reinstallation CD from a Dell computer... Could this be the root of all my subsequent problems since the upgrade? Is XP for Dell compatible w/ other computers? Any insight/feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

rda1959, Jul 22, 2009

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Mr. B Notebook Consultant

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OEM operating system disk are generally incompatible and refuse to install on any hardware aside from the model they were included with. On laptops these versions have model specific drivers.

My first laptop was an R505GL and it handled Windows XP just fine. I don't see why it should be a problem. Sony recovery discs for XP might be avaliable through Sony DAPC. Otherwise, a retail XP disc would work but you would need to install Sony specific drivers and software manually.

Mr. B, Jul 23, 2009

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