Sony Vaio VGN-B1XP Notebook Setup and Utilities

Hello everyone

I have an old Vaio VGN B1XP, came with Windows XP pre-installed, but with no DVD.

I did create the recovery DVDs but anyway, the disc 1 is not very well right now. The computer doesn't boot with it in the drive, and the copied dvd image I created from that disc gives an error during Windows Setup.

The problem started a year ago when I carelessly left some cereals and milk drop over the keyboard, and it shut down since. Very clumbsy I know, I was sooo very angry at myself... Anyway, I thought it had no recovery chance so I kept it closed in the bag. Recently I decided to give it a go and... IT TURNED ON!

My laptop is fully working now, all the keys, the touchpad, USB ports and so on. But... I couldn't install the original Windows with the recovery DVD. For now, I'm using a temporary Windows XP Pro with SP3. The drivers are all installed (went to Sony support page for this model download the original drivers and utilities), but:

- The touchpad driver, does not have the scrolling touch behaviour, vertical / horizontal. It works ok, drag and click, but no scrolling as it used to have. Tried the Synaptics driver also, but regardless the driver I try, there is no touchpad icon in the system tray. Any tips?

- The Sony Notebook Setup icon Control Panel doesn't open any window. The utility is installed, but doesn't work.

- The hotkey utility, doesn't work either. I can use some Fn keys, like Pause, Home and End, but the brightness control, sound volume/mute, don't work at all.

I'm very confused because I'm using all the drivers to Windows XP, and this is Windows XP. Really weird...

I just wanted the hotkeys, touchpad scroll, and other utilities to work normally.

Thanks!

 

The Sony drivers and utilities need to be installed in a specific order for them to work properly. Look in this forum for a clean install guide for your model and follow the instructions there. If you can't find the guide, just install the drivers and utilities in the order in which they are listed on the Sony support page and keep your fingers crossed.

While installing drivers for laptops, it is a very good idea to disconnect from the internet, otherwise Windows will look for and install drivers which it thinks are right for you; this might not always be the case, so proceed with caution.

 

Thank you a lot for the reply, but the drivers are all placed in a single zip file, with the folders inside, sorted in alphabetical order.

I did search the forum for "vgn b1xp" and the only thing I found was a locked thread by now (last reply was from 2010).

Any special place for that guide?

Thanks again!

UPDATE:

I managed to create copies of the Recovery DVDs. Altough the Vaio dvd drive wasn't reading them correctly, I have an external USB DVD Recorder that had no problem reading them. So I made copies of them to new DVDs and used them to restore the operating system. Now is up and running. All devices working, utilities and so on. Only minor thing still bugging me is a BSOD that appears when I turn the wireless on. Will install an offline SP3 and update the wireless driver to see if solves the problem.