Sony Recovery Disc Cracked!! Feels like heaven... :)

I picked up a brand new sony vaio vgn-cr35g sometime ago. But it came with a truck load of ****ware as expected and was hogging my system resources. I tried uninstalling the crapware, but they left too much of residue that couldn't be cleaned!!! WTF???

So, the only option was to re-install vista from a seperate original disk (doesn't ship with laptop). But for that I needed all the hardware drivers. And there was no provision to extract them from the sony recovery partition!!! FaK sony. Well, after screwing around for a couple of days I finally managed to crack their formats and extract all the stuff from the sony recovery partition.

Here is the fun part: Once extracted, I couldn't believe what I saw. I have listed the stuff below:

(1) A very very clean vista home premium image that is pre-activated & factory optimized for high performance & power efficiency. Lets call it the "clean-sony-image". I found out the results the hard way after multiple clean installs with the clean-sony-image and/or my original vista dvd. I'm telling u, the clean-sony-image rocks.

(2) Almost all required hardware drivers. For some strange reason, sony didn't install the wireless hardware driver in the clean-sony-image. You'll have to do it by yourself after restoring the clean-sony-image to your hdd.

(3) Lots of good "fully functional software" like Photoshop Elements6, Premier Elements 4, Roxio and lots more. You should install only the stuff that you'll be needing. Please do not bloat your installation.

Right now, I'm polishing all the scripts and patcher for generic use. Once done (probably a day), I'll get it uploaded and post the link here.

Well, It's party time guys... lets rock. And you should all thank sony for the wonderful stuff they've put in the recovery media.

 

I don't think the term cracked was right. He just meant he figured out how Sony did the clean install without the bloatware. Heck, if he can figure out how to do that fot the TZ150 I have I would be happy.

 

There has been a few threads about people trying to extract the Data from Sony Recovery Discs so people can get the orignal drivers and a clean-vista image and they seem pretty much under the radar. Such a tool would be very benefical to Sony end-users.

 

7zip will extract .WIM files, and consequently .MOD files if you rename them to .WIM.
http://www.7-zip.org/

This won't get you to a clean install state as 7zip won't compile the files, but you should be able to extract spefic files. I guess you could pull the Vista install bits and burn with an extracted boot file with something like UltraISO.

Alternatively, you can use imagex from the Windows Automated Installation Kit to mount the WIM's. I did this to pull MS Maps out for an independent install. The folder structure in the WIMs are a complete nightmare, btw.

If you can roll a clean Vista (with all the Vaio drivers and applets) by scripting imagex's API from the WAIK, the community will be greatful.

However, be careful about redistributing imagex. I think the only legal way is by downloading the ginormous WAIK from Microsoft. Imagex and it's supporting files are like 2 megs, but the WAIK is 992.

This is all, of course, unless you've figured out how to do the work without imagex.

 

***** Nope. Nope. You've missed a very critical peice of info. *****

The MOD files area actually WIM files than can be processed with Microsoft imagex. Fine. But, unfortunately, the headers are scrambled and neither imagex nor 7zip can read them properly withour hollering errors. So, I've written a utiliy, simply called "patchmod" (which I'll upload shortly), to convert these MOD files back to WIM files.

As far as the SNY files in the recovery partition are concerned, they too are WIM files but are spanned WIM files (otherwise called SWM files). Hell. It took a while to figure out that only the first file in the sequence was scrambled and the rest were just fine. So, if you "patchmod" the first SNY file and then combine all the SNY files using the the following command, you get the entire WIM file (T-H-E "clean-sony-image").

Command to combile all SNY files into one WIM file (after "patchmod"):
imagex /ref *.sny /export first_file.sny 1 c:\sony.wim "sony"

sony.wim is the "clean-sony-image" I was talking about in my first post. Once you get it, remember to burn it to a DVD (along with imagex).

ps: After "patchmod", use only imagex and not 7zip. even the latest version of 7zip produced lots of errors with these WIM files and is highly undesirable. In simple words, when it comes to these WIM files, 7zip sucks.

 

Been there, done that. You could have saved yourself some time:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=121966&page=3

I can ONLY speak for my AR model:
I don't like the Sony image too much. They did install most drivers and some utilities only. Rest of the stuff gets installed by the recovery app (MOD files) after applying the OS image I guess.

Anyway, the only positive thing about it is that it is faster to apply than a clean Vista install or a full Sony recovery.
Windows activation is no real point since there's a nice tool for backing it up (there's a thread in this forum, same license works for Vista64).

Cons:
*) settings, power management etc. weren't any "better" than a real clean Vista install would give me.
*) hard to figure out what Sony really installed (or messed up) - Windows "Programs and Features" list does not necessarily show everything.
*) old drivers (without additional work) - generally I prefer latest drivers, especially graphics
*) 32bit only of course

For people having enough computing skills I ALWAYS recommend a clean install (+ writing notes what you do, + imaging the OS, etc.).

 

My brain hurt reading all that. Is this something that would work for a tz model?

 

madurai_tiger and PWR,
Awesome info! I was looking for the ways to extract software from .MOD files for a while now. If madurai_tiger could write up a step by step and post a link to the patcher, would be great! Looking forward to it! Thanks guys!

 

hey madurai tiger, can you post the scripts and tools. Can this be easily customised to work on AR series.

 

Friends... sorry for the delay. Something came up before I could finish polishing the patcher and the scripts. Here is the download link:

http://www.box.net/shared/67zb3r688g

Read the readme.txt file before doing anything. Also, be careful... create recovery DVDs before doing ANYTHING with your laptop. Also, please please post a feedback about what happened. It can help a LOT of people and also help me improve/refine the tools which should make life easier for others.

Help us to help you. Please post your feedback.

 

My guess is, the patcher should work fine on other sony models as well... including AR & TZ series. Not sure about the old models though. Just try the patcher, if it gives errors, you won't lose anything. You just won't be able to extract the files. Thats all.

Cheers,
madurai_tiger.

 

I have the vaio tz recovery discs, but no recovery partition.
I cannot find any .mod files, but i see the .sny files on disc1 of the recovery discs (which add up to 3.4GB in total).

Can I still use this patch and extract a clean vista image?

 

After re-reading the Readme.txt file a number of times and following your directions, I still cannot extract any .mod files. I cannot figure out why. I get this info:
_________________________________________________________
Starting Sony Vaio MOD Patcher..
Checking header...
Read failed.
ImageX Tool for Windows

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. 1981-2005. All rights reserved.
Unmounting: [C:\Sony\mount]...

The system cannot find the file specified.

ImageX Tool for Windows

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. 1981-2005. All rights reserved.

The system cannot find the file specified.
______________________________________________________

Help me out here guys! What am I doing wrong?

 

Please ensure that all the MOD files, SNY files, batch files & patchmod.exe is in the same directory. Please try the following:

Add the imagex path to the path (system variable). To do that:

(1) goto control panel->system->advanced system settings. The system properties window will now open.

(2) Goto the "Advanced" tab and click on the "environment variables" button. Now, in the bottom system variables list, choose "path" and click in the edit button.

(3) Now goto the end and type the following. Note you should always add a ";" before adding your path. So, what you need to add looks something like this:

;c:\patch\imagex

Assuming that the path of the imagex.exe file is c:\patch\imagex\imagex.exe

Now, click OK a couple of times. Close all existing command prompt windows and opena fresh one and then run the scripts. Hope this helps.

madurai_tiger.

 

Thanks again,
Let me try it again and see what happens. I also sent you a PM.

 

Hey dude,
Still no luck here. Trying to run extractmod.bat to extract just one .MOD file keeps telling me the following:
----------------------------------------------------
C:\>patch\extractmod.bat MOD-Click_to_Disc_2CH

Processing MOD file MOD-Click_to_Disc_2CH...
Patching MOD file...
'patchmod' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
Creating mount point...
The system cannot find the path specified.
Mounting patched MOD file...
The system cannot find the path specified.
Error mounting MOD file.
Cleaning up...
-----------------------------------------------------
I dont know if my MOD files are different...maybe if you can, remote access my computer and try it? Let me know. Thanks

 

Seems to me that you don't have the file "patchmod.exe" in the folder "C:\>patch\"?

 

Hi, I tried the extractmod.bat, but I always got the 'Error mounting MOD file.' message, what gives?

 

Click the link in my sig. to burn a vista install dvd from the set up files in your vaio's hard drive. Get rid of sony's recovery dvd.

 

Sorted at last - all .mod files successfully extracted and installed
Thanks to all who posted info here

 

I was thinking of doing this, but the procedure seems so complex. Is this method any better than a semi-clean installation?

 

Hi,
Mind sharing with the rest how you figured it out? I cannot sort it..... Thanks!

 

But before you can mount a WIM file, you need to install the WIM File System Filter, which is responsible for handling all file system requests to the mounted WIM file, enabling browsing and editing of its contents. To install the WIM File System Filter right-click wimfltr.inf, and select Install. This will install and activate the wimfltr.sys file system filter.

 

Hi mmikle, thanks for your suggestion. I think that's the solution for my problem.

 

BTW - This method may be running out of steam now that SP1 is here. I have no files or folders (and I looked EVERYWHERE) per your instructions that have WAU in them. The method for upgrading is now done all online with downloads it appears.

 

MMIkl you rock!!! Thanks so much for the tip! That did it! Yay! I don't know why it was not mentioned in the Readme notes; very grateful!

 

Great - just wish you would have said "You need the original Microsoft Windows Vista DVD to restore the sony.wim image to your laptop partition." earlier! That's the one thing I am missing.

 

Thanks mmikle

I've been scratching my head for hours trying, kept failing with this message "Error mounting MOD file." Extracting fine now.

 

madurai_tiger

I follow the intructions on the readme.txt to create a sony.wim file.

I have the Sony SZ7 which created 2 recovery discs. Both discs had a number of .mod files and .sny files. The .mod files were different on each disc and the .sny file sets were numbered differently.

When I ran join-sny.bat to combine the files, each set gave me a .wim file of exactly 4,458,458 KB. Confusing as to why the recovery app would create the same image on both DVDs.

I followed your guide to restore the sony.wim to c:. The setup worked fine and Vista was installed in minutes. However I didn't get the clean Vista image, instead the final install had ALL the Sony bloatware as before.

Was a step missed in your readme?

 

The .SNY files I have are P2.SNY, P22.SNY, P23.SNY, P24.SNY and P25.SNY. There is an other file that has an .APP Extention in with these files.

When I created the sony.wim File It completed just fine, but was little under 3gb. When I tried to install the sony.wim image, It failed with an error stating that the image was invalid.

I notice that P21.SNY is missing, could this be the .APP file be the missing P21.SNY file?

 

Hey Madurai,

Im just about to give this ago and i have the sony.wim already sorted.

Your instructions say to do

3) Shrink the size of your first partition by atleast 10 GB to make space
for a new partition.

(4) Once shrink is complete, you'll have 10 GB of empty space after the
first partition. Now, create a new 10 GB NTFS partition with the drive
letter H: (FAT or FAT32 partition is strictly not allowed).

(5) Now, copy the sony.wim file and the imagex folder to H:

After this we reboot and mount that small partition and carry on.

My question is.

1. once everything is installed should we delete that small 10gig partition or just leave it there with sony.wim ( i have a copy of sony.wim on a dvd ).

2. what happens to the usual sony recovery partition using this process? Its is removed or formatted or what ( your instructions only say that c:\ is formatted, is the hidden recovery partition actually the c:\ )?

3. Can we do this process somehow from dvd? or memory key?

Thanks alot for your help.

 

Well i went ahead and did the install from dvd, make sure to format the c:\ and keep the dvd in the drive for the entire time that vista does its install, it seems to refer to the disc somehow. all works..

anyone found vaio recovery center on the recovery disk at all, i cant see a wim that has it.. any thoughts?

 

Thanks this sounds good.

 

It's not in a WIM. If you search for "rec" you should find it sitting uncompressed in one of the folders.

 

I have followed the directions and have been successful in extracting MOD files into EXE files. My question is how can I tell what the EXE files will install. Some are obviously named, but many of them just contain "MOD" followed by a number. Does anyone have a list of what each MOD file installs?

Thanks,

Mike

 

Hi, this sounds really interesting...

Just wondering if newer laptops like the Z and the SR and such will still be able to use this to extract that clean Vista image, or has something changed that this can no longer be done?

SP1 seems to be bundled with everything in the recovery so... is this still possible to do? Or has the bloatware become a permanent part of that vista image?

 

Hey Guys,

I looked all over the recovery dvd disk through the MOD files but did not found some drivers like sound, video, bluetooth... either Roxio cd writer.

All MOD files I´ve found were in Data directory of the DVD.

Any ideia where those files I´m missing could be?

Thanks,

Andre.

 

My friend I get my sony.wim file
I it not a vista oem copy in order to make a oem vista cd and istall 64 bit vista instead of my 32 bit system. It is a clone image of a alredy installed vista in my laptop. Do you know how to make this file 64 bit? I have find the most of the 64 bit driver in the web.

 

I managed to get the sony GOLD image from a Vaio NR230AE,
but the stuff was extracted from the two Recovery disks.
It worked copacetic,
lukkiguy

 

Hey Vaio-User,

can anyone say about, if Mod2Wim functioned with two-/multi-OS (e.g. i have Vista+Windows7 installed) on my Vaio (..and firstly i want Vista ..SYN-restore) ?

Or should i install W7 on an external HDD?