Restoring a Z Series to Factory

Hello -

I have a Z Series VAIO that I purchased a year or two ago. I've gotten a new laptop. Would like to wipe the Z series clean and get it back to the condition it was in when it shipped to me. But I do not have the original disks anymore.

What would be the process (please don't leave anything out!) to accomplish this?

Secondly ....

The docking station that came with it which has the CD drive and other important hardware and software - seems buggy. Any time the laptop is connected to it, the system freezes. Completely. Takes about 15 minutes but always happens. Is there some way to wipe the docking station clean and reset it back to factory as well? I am only assuming this may fix the problem.

Thank you.

 

Is the recovery partition still there? Right click 'My Computer' and select 'Manage'. Then click "Disk Management' and see if there is a Recovery Partition in the list. If it is there, then a complete system recovery will do the trick.

 

Here's what I've got:

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(blank): Simple Basic (blank) Healthy (Recovery Partition) Capacity: 14GB Free: 14GB Percent Free: 100%
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C: Simple Basic NTFS Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition) Capacity: 223GB Free: 88GB Percent Free: 40%
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System Reserved: Simple Basic NTFS Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition) Capacity: 100MB Free: 70MB Percent Free: 70%
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Looks like I've got a Recovery Partition but I wonder about the fact that its empty? (100% Free)

 

Mine also says 100% free. I think that's just wrong.
Once you've copied all your data off it, try turning it on with the assist button held down. That should bring it up into recovery mode. If it does boot up in recovery mode, the recovery files should be there, and you should be able to do a factory restore.

 

That partition is not designed to be read by Windows, so it says whatever comes into its head. Do what Ashers said ^ and if that works, choose complete system recovery which will delete all partitions on the drive and basically return it to the original factory state. Or you could just recover to C partition and leave the other partitions intact for the next user (after wiping them clean, of course!).

If it doesn't work, then you might need the Sony recovery application installed - this goes away if you've reformatted your drive for a clean install. I think I have mine backed up somewhere. Let me know if you need it and I'll try to upload it somewhere for you.

 

Hi guys -

did the system restore -holding down "Assist" button worked, but now i need to do it again. Long story. Holding Assist does nothing. Goes right into windows.

When I try holding F8 ... i see some options including what looks like recovery options ... but it says there are no images for it to use.

I dont think thats the right screen. What I want is recovery ... restore ...

I do see the same items under "Manage" and My computer that i listed above so i know theres a recovery partition. How do I access it without the assist button?

 

Try booting by only pressing the assist button, not the power button...

As for the docking station, the pcie-microcard is read-only so unless you've done some hacking-stuff yourself, there should be no gain from 'wiping' it. Maybe a system restore will see you docking station back to a functional state...