Sony Vaio laptop recovery partition

I have a family member who has a Sony Vaio latop, model #VGN-C290. It came with Vista, but she doesn't like Vista so I am gonna assist her in putting XP on it instead. It apparently contains a hidden partition of about 7-10GB that contains a Vista recovery image of some sort for totally reinstalling it. So if I want to bring it back to factory new condition, all I have to do is simply hit f10 during boot-up in order to access this restore function.

Since I'm gonna help her put XP on it, I'm assuming as long as I don't wipe out the hard drive completely or delete this hidden partition with the Vista image on it, I can still access it back down the road if she decides later on to put Vista on again, correct?

In other words, can I simply format the regular/non-hidden partition in order to put XP on and not affect the hidden partition at all? Or would there be more involved to get it back if I installed XP & then later on wanted to recover the Vista image?

 

Yes, the recovery partition can be invoked at any time with the F10 button as long as you don't delete it and it can be used to make a "clean" install of the old Vista partition. It's still a good idea though to back up the recovery partition to backup DVDs just in case (use the backup option in Sony Vaio recovery center). As for the Windows installer, it will probably not even list the recovery partition (designated as HDD0 partition 1) so chances are minimal that you might accidentally delete it...

 

Yes, you will be fine if you do as you outlined here. One word of caution, seek out a XP clean install guide for the particular model of Vaio. Sony's can be a bit tricky because they rely, not only on drivers but also some auxiliary applications and libraries for things like function keys and powermanagent. Because of this, unless these extra apps are available for XP on this model some features may not work at all. Also be aware that the sequence in which you load the apps, libraries and drivers can be very important. Get everything you need BEFORE you start, or you might very well wind up back with Vista. To be honest, if I were you I'd try to help your friend overcome the reluctance to Vista instead of trying to shoehorn in an OS that Sony never intended to support. (I am not familiar with this model, on some Sony does offer the "downgrade" to XP, while on others it is an uphill battle to make it work.)

Gary