Sony Vaio Recovery Problem

Hi,

I hope someone can help!

My FJ1S vaio just crashed one day and now getting blue screen of death after Win XP splash screen on boot up. It is a generic 'Windows needs to shut down to protect your machine' bla bla bla.

Here is the real problem: when trying to use the recovery disks, or recovery utility it comes up with the error 'Cannot use this utility for your computer. Confirm the model type'. I have successfully used it many times before though. Wierd.

Checking the bios, it says Machine Name and Serial Number are 'RESERVED', which leads me to believe the BIOS is somehow corrupt - shouldn't these be populated? I am not sure as I have never checked before! I assume the recovery utility checks for these details as it is OEM installed software and when it cannot won't boot.

I contacted Sony support who gave me the only option of sending it in for £399! More than the 4 yr old machine is worth!

I think my best solution is to do a clean install of XP as I have the key and could potentially borrow a CD. I would rather have the use of the recovery tool though as it is very useful and has all the pre-installed Sony software, drivers, etc.!

I was thinking of trying to 'hack' the phoenix bios with an editor - maybe too risky??

Anyone have ideas on fixing/hacking the recovery tool?

Any help would be much appreciated in this time of need!

Thanks,

Dan

 

Have you tried searching their web site for an updated bios and loading it in safe mode?

 

Safe mode also results in blue screen. I have the bios updated to the latest version. It's strange that it just happened out of nowhere and recovery won't work anymore...