Sony Z HD install and 64bit upgrade problems

I opened up my Z last night and changed the stock HDD to a new WD Scorpio Black 320gb 7200rpm HDD. Aside from some difficulty with one of the screws already having a stripped head, it was a fairly simple process.

I turned the Z back on and installed Vista Home Premium x64 SP1 from the OEM disc that I bought for my custom-built desktop computer (to clarify, this means it's the official MSDN release of Vista x64 SP1 from March '08, w/ no embedded drivers), using the Vista product key under the bottom of my Z. All was well until the install completed and Vista rebooted... it gave me the blue screen of death. I shut down the Z and turned it back on -- same result. Then I started the Z and jumped into the BIOS immediately, took out the Vista install disc, and started -- this time it didn't blue screen and the Vista install completed and successfully booted to the desktop.

I was tired and went to bed at that point before installing any drivers, but I'm concerned that my install may be corrupted and that I should attempt it again (perhaps ensuring that I remove the install disc immediately upon the reboot?). Could the blue screen be an issue associated with my Vista SP1 disc not having the right SATA drivers for the Z? If that's the case, I may have to try to create a new Vista install disc with the drivers slip-streamed in.

Another odd thing was that, when choosing where to install, Vista saw the only partition on the HDD as "Disk 0 Partition 3." The HDD is brand new -- I remember back to when I installed Vista on my desktop and it saw my hard drive as "Disk 0 Partition 1." There was no missing space, it had the 298.9GB that you'd expect for a 320GB drive.

Any ideas?

 

I'm starting to get really annoyed with the Z... or the hard drive... or Vista... whatever it is that's causing the BSOD and won't let me even boot from the Vaio recovery disc.

I changed the HDD last night to a WD Scorpio Black 320gb 7200rpm... installed Vista x64 SP1 onto the drive with what it considered "Disk 0 Partition 3." I guess Sony puts something on partitions 1 and 2 by default. I get a variety of BSOD's every time the Vaio tries to get into windows.

I've repeated the installation 3 times now. I also have a 32-bit Vista disc without SP1 on it that I may try. And an older XP SP2 disc.

BUT now I can't get the Vaio to even boot from the internal disc drive -- I place the Vista or Vaio Recovery discs in and it skips to boot from the HDD as if they arent even there (in the BIOS the internal disc drive is the first thing to be read).

I'm confused and dumb-founded at this point. Even if the hard drive were bad, that wouldn't explain the other problems, leading me to believe the issue lies elsewhere.

 

Sorry to hear that your having trouble but hearing stories like this make me very glad I just paid the extra $90. Good luck.

 

Put back the old HDD and see what happens then.

 

Indeed. Though I bought mine as a refurb so I didn't get to configure it. I probably would have wanted a clean install of Vista anyway.

Anyway, I've learned a lot about Vista and the Vaio Z tonight.

First, I realized that to get into the boot loader I had to press F8 and then Esc until I could select the DVD drive.

Second, I hadn't realized that the Vaio Z was using EFI rather than BIOS... I think this was the issue I had with trying to clean install Vista x64. With x64, there were 2 tiny partitions being created a the front of the hard drive (so it would default to install on partition 3). On Vista x86, it has the entire drive to work with, so it defaults to Disk 0 Partition 1.

I think I've found the answers to this in other threads, but I need to do a little more work to make sure I know what I'm doing.

 

if you figure it out, please do a detailed write up for us, cause i went through almost 8 hours of BSOD's before i gave up and restored the system.

 

I wonder if it might be the 500 series because the 610 and 690 both worked flawlessly for me. I've not had one BSOD and I've reformatted both twice (using the 7200 rpm and SSD drives), so I'm not sure. It could be the actual computer too...

 

I've got the 690

You installed 64 bit vista right?

 

Did you do a clean install using Vista retail discs or a semi-clean install with the Vaio recovery discs?

I myself did a semi-clean install using the burned Vaio recovery discs & have been successful but I cannot say the same for a clean install using Vista retail discs because I've not tried that.... Maybe doing a clean install using Vista retail discs require a slightly different method of installation?

 

Was your semi-clean install worthwhile? Notice much change, less bloat?

 

SONY lists VISTA 64 drivers for more recent models, but not for "older" ones like the 570. Any reason that VISTA 64 can not be made workable on a 570?

Any tricks other than those already listed for clean installs?

 

I have a question -- you say you used the product key on your Z for the 64 bit vista... is this generally acceptable? Can I do this also, or does this only work for the MSDN version. I was an early adopter and got a z590 but Sony, in their rush to put stuff on the market, didnt have 64bit vista read yet... I want to use all of this 4gigs ~

 

Yes, that's acceptable. Your product key only limits you to the specific version of Vista that you purchased or had pre-installed (i.e. Home Premium, Business, Ultimate) but not whether it's 32 or 64-bit. For my desktop, I originally purchased an OEM of Home Premium 32-bit when Vista first came out in Jan 2007. Then, last May, I purchased a new hard drive, killed the old installation, and did a clean install of Home Premium SP1 64-bit. To do this, I downloaded the MSDN (official release) of the 64-bit w/ SP1 pre-integrated from a torrent, burned it, and used it with my Home Premium product key. This is perfectly acceptable -- it still requires you to validate with your product key as it should.

The problem I'm having with installing 64-bit Vista on the Vaio isn't related to the key or anything, it has something to do with the way the hard drive is being partitioned for the 64-bit install -- it's creating 2 tiny partitions at the front of the disk, and then it BSOD's like crazy once installed. When I go back and use the 32-bit disc, there's no problem, Vista installs as the first partition and no BSOD.

 

Sure, I'd be more than happy to. I think the answer lies with two posts from the Vista x64 Business on the Vaio Z thread in these forums. See this:

From http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=292536&page=13

And:

From http://forum.notebookreview.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=4535003

I've been able to confirm that my hard drive and all of the hardware are working properly -- I was able to successfully install Vista 32-bit (an OEM disc that did NOT contain SP1 yet) and chkdsk and memtest result in no errors. The EFI/GPT problem is clearly the issue. I tried running the x64 SP1 installer in safe mode last night but couldn't seem to do it (not sure when to press F8).

I'm going to burn a new copy of my x64 SP1 disc tonight to ensure that the disc wasn't the problem, and then try the two things listed above.

 

Ah, more information on the x64 installation problem here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=337179&page=9

sigma957's post there is extremely helpful. I think I'll need to delete the partition and make it GUID using DISKPART or a similar utility. I'll try that tonight.

 

Only that Sony deliberately checks the model number for all of their packages and refuse to extract them if you have the "wrong" model. Even if the software or drivers would work flawlessly on an older model, they then don't have to support it, which cuts costs, and drives people to buy new machines, which increases revenue.

Generally, with a VAIO, you're stuck with whatever Sony drivers and utilities that came with the machine, unless you can obtain drivers through third parties. Exceptions only for very critical updates where not providing updates would lead to economic liabilities for Sony.

Sony isn't at the bottom of the list in providing software and driver updates and support, but they are definitely not in the top half.

 

I did a completely clean install of Vista. Erased all partitions and started from scratch.

 

That's what I've been doing as well. The only other thing I can think of is that perhaps there's a problem with the Vista x64/Win7 discs I've burned and tried to install from (since it had worked flawlessly from the one original Vista disc I had, which was the 32-bit one). But that would be surprising since they're all official releases straight from Microsoft untouched.

This is extremely frustrating. I can't replicate the issue at all when I use x86, and trying to fix it with the 2 methods recommended from another thread earlier didn't work at all (as Safe mode installation didn't remove the EFI/GPT error) -- I can't get the Vaio's EFI to play nice with x64.

 

I resolved my numerous BSOD problems during install by creating an MBR disk, versus the GPT disk the Win7 install had created. I then "manually" installed by using imagex and applying the install.wim image from the DVD. I'm thinking of taking a WIM image of my working install and then trying to recreate my disk as a GPT to see if it will work or not.

 

That's a pretty ingenious work-around. I'll do some google searches and see if I can do it. Thanks. I have the Vista/Win 7 discs and .iso's already, and am downloading .img file that will have ImageX on it... any tips on the easiest way to do this?

 

Sure, although there may be some slight differences since I'm writing this just off my memory of what I did.

Once you boot up with your WinPE disk (with imagex) run diskpart.
Do a "list disk" to view your disks. That's where you should see Disk 1 as a GPT, if you've been trying to install from the Win7 DVD.
Then run:
select disk 1 (double check, it should be disk 1)
clean
create partition primary
active
format fs=ntfs quick
assign
exit

You should now have a C: drive cleanly partitioned and formatted. Now with your Win7 DVD in your drive, run:
imagex /apply d:\sources\install.wim 4 c:\

This will apply the Ultimate installation to your C drive. It does not include boot files however, so then do:

copy d:\bootmgr c:\

Then run wpeutil reboot

Keep your Win7 DVD in so you can have it repair your boot record. It'll set things up real quickly for you then you can boot into Vista. If you feel like you could set this up manually using bcdedit, but it's easier to just have Repair do it.

I think that should be it!

 

Wow, sfiorito, thanks for all the help -- listing the commands for applying imagex probably saved me 2 hours of searching/learning how to use it on my own. I'm 20% into the copying of install.wim to the C:\, 12 mins to go. This looks very promising.

 

Actually, now I've encountered an error after the step where I repaired the BIOS. Windows tries to finish the installation but immediately gives me a registry error.

Now, in my case I tried to install Vista SP1 x64 rather than Win7 x64. And I also made the WinPE disc using the amd64 directory in WAIK. I wonder if either of these is the source of the error?

Even if I hadn't run into the registry error, the installation said it was of Vista Ultimate, which may have quickly become problematic as I only have Home Premium. I don't really see an option where this can be specified when applying the installation via command code.

My Vaio must be very annoyed with me by now...

 

if you do imagex /list it will show you an XML file with all the images within the install.wim file. You need to look for the appropriate index for the image you want to install. 4 is Win7 Ultimate on the x64 DVD.

 

Ah, I see -- I should have looked into that. But that wouldn't explain why Windows gave me an error following the reboot that it couldn't proceed with the installation because of a registry path error, would it?

I'm betting that my problem was related to making the WinPE disc using the /amd64 imagex -- I probably should have made it with the /x86 folder. I was going to do the ia64 one, but didn't see the requisite file that needed to be copied.

 

I'm not sure about the registry error. I'm not sure, but I think it shouldn't matter which version you use for WinPE, but WinPE USB disk is x86 since it I use it for all kinds of hardware.

 

I was going to try the install again with imagex, and I think it probably would have worked for me (still not sure why I had the registry error), but I decided to take the easy way out and downloaded and burned the official MSDN release of Vista x64 RTM (w/o SP1) -- the original Vista x64 release doesn't have the same EFI support as the SP1 installer and doesn't complain when I try to install on a MBR. Patched to SP1 in Windows and I'm good to go -- all drivers are working and no BSOD's.

While this is certainly an easy way for anyone to do a Vista x64 install on the Vaio Z w/o making the WinPE disc, the concern is what to do about Win7 x64. I guess when Windows 7 comes out I'll try to dig this thread up and hope that I can get the imagex method to work (or hope that Microsoft adds an easy way to override the x64 GPT for EFI requirement in Win7).

Thank you so much for all the help.

 

I just buy a Z31WN. I replace the originial HD by a SSD Samsung 64GB and I don't have any problem installing Vista x64 SP1. If you are using the Vista key of your Z, you won't be able to active it.

 

So you installed Vista x64 SP1 from a Vista disc, rather than from recovery discs for your Vaio? Also, I don't see why I won't be able to activate my install with the Vista key from the bottom of my Vaio. I may have to call Microsoft to get an activation code, but my product key is unique and allows me use of Vista Home Premium on my Vaio Z, regardless of service pack or whether it's 32 or 64-bit. I'll deal with activation tonight.

A lot of the newer Vaio Z's come with x64 already installed, which may explain why some people seem to have no trouble installing x64 -- perhaps some Vaio Z models use 64-bit EFI while some of the older models (my refurb Z590 is from Sept. '08) use 32-bit EFI and have problems with the Vista/Win7 installer's support of EFI. I don't have the technical knowledge to test this hypothesis.


Here are my thoughts (experts, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong):

The Vaio Z uses Insyde H2O UEFI that supports both booting from EFI or BIOS. Vista x64 SP1 and Win7 x64 have the ability to detect whether they were booted from EFI or BIOS, and adjust installation parameters accordingly. When booted as BIOS, the Vaio Z has no problem installing x64 SP1; when booted as EFI, it automatically reformats your HDD to GPT and then creates three partitions (EFI, MSR, and MBR) for the installation.

This seems to be where the problem comes in, as following restart, the system BSOD's constantly.

I suspect that if you could boot the x64 SP1 installation disc as BIOS (don't let it detect EFI at all), you could install strictly as MBR and avoid any issues. Now, fortunately, some Intel Mac's with an older version of EFI (1.1 rather than the current 2.0 standard) running boot camp have a problem with Vista x64 SP1 where the install disc attempts to boot from EFI but, with EFI 1.1 unsupported, they can't go any further.

Different problem (I think), but the solution may be the same: Make a Vista/Win 7 x64 install disc that can ONLY boot from BIOS (which is exactly why the non-SP1 Vista x64 disc works flawlessly). This website may have a very easy way to do that: http://blog.aproductofsociety.org/?p=13

The simple solution is as follows (taken from: Sergio Mcfly’s Blog):

1) Download Vista SP1/2008 x64 ISO from MSDN, orgrab your CD
2) Create 3 folders c:\efi-iso c:\efi-exe c:\efi-dvd
3) Download oscdimg.exe from here into c:\efi-exe
4) Extract iso using 7Zip or WinRAR (Or copy the contents of the DVD) into c:\efi-dvd
5) Start up a command prompt (Start -> Run -> cmd)
6) Type: cd c:\efi-exe
7) Type: oscdimg -n -m -bc:\efi-dvd\boot\etfsboot.com c:\efi-dvd c:\efi-iso\server2008dvd.iso

If it works, it should let you boot the installer and will allow for a clean installation to Disk 0 Partition 1 of your hard disk with no EFI/GPT error.

If anyone tries this, please let me know. At this point I have already installed the SP1 patch onto my system, along with all of the drivers and utilities, so I don't have an interest in wiping my installation just to test this. But, if no one else does, perhaps I'll try making the disc in the way outlined in that site and see if it at least boots in BIOS mode.

Hope this helps someone -- while using the vanilla x64 Vista disc is probably the easiest way to deal with that OS, this may be the easiest way to install Win7 x64.

Also, more helpful information on Vista x64 SP1/Server 2008 support of UEFI: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930061

 

Thanks for finding this! The install worked flawlessly, I'm now running XP Pro 32bit/ Vista Ultimate 64bit dual boot.

 

why do you guys care so much about 64 bit OS?

I have a Z690 CTO with 64 bit vista. Other than being able to recognize 4 gb of ram, I don't really see any advantages... and apparently my itunes didn't install properly too..

 

you just said it: 4GB of RAM. I use my Z as my only machine so I use it for my dev tools. having 4GB of RAM helps while running a lot of programs and debugging, etc.

 

Vista and Win7 seem to be a little snappier when they have more RAM to feed on, even if you reguarly don't use any more than 2GB for all of your apps and system processes.

With 32bit, my 4GB of RAM could only have 2.93GB addressed.

There is also evidence that 64bit Vista SP1 is faster than 32bit SP1, significantly so on most 64-bit software/synthetic benchmarks, while being at least as fast on 32-bit apps. 64-bit software is still few and far between, but maybe not in 2-3 years (and I expect my Z will be my primary/only laptop for 4 years at least), as it seems likely that Microsoft will push Win7 x64 to their OEM partners from the start this time (and 4GB of RAM pre-installed will be the minimum quite soon) -- already >25% of Vista installs were x64 for 2008, MUCH higher than it was in '07.

Addtionally, the downsides of Vista x64 are only few: I'm having trouble finding the driver for the Spint WWAN card in my Z590 (though I know one does exist...somewhere), and the fact that drivers have to be signed means that I have to use Sony's official graphics hybrid drivers (which uses a mid-2008 Geforce driver) unless I want to run the Z in test mode to run the unsigned drivers. Oh, and it's also not yet compatible with Google desktop.

My other reason, athough insignificant, is that the desktop I built is running Vista x64 and I simply wanted to run the same OS on both systems. Likewise, when I upgrade to Win7, I'll probably upgrade both systems at the same time to make things easy.

 

Also, fyi for anyone doing a clean Vista install: I activated Vista with the product key from the bottom of my Z... worked no problem, no need to call Microsoft.

 

Cool! Thanks a lot for the explanation. This makes me feel very lucky that my Z came with 64 bit OS. I don't really have the time to do a clean install and getting all the drivers to work right.

My Z does feel a lot more snappier compare to my old 32 bit vista system. But then again, that laptop's only got a 1.8 Ghz processor, 3 gb of ram, and a 5,400 rpm 250 gb hdd, whereas I have a 2.66 Ghz processor, 4 gb of ram, and a 320gb 7,200 rpm hdd. However, my old laptop were not running nearly as much bloatwares as this Z (I have 92 processes running in the background right now)...

I'm sure I will do a clean install later when I have time or when I upgrade to Windows 7, but as of right now, I'm pretty satisfied with the speed.

 

So you are able to activate Vista Business 64bit by using product key from the bottom of your Z!?
Please me what type of Vista disc you used? OEM or Retail.
My Vista 64bit disc is downloaded from MSDN, but my Z key doesn't work.

 

so I spent more time messing with this as I wanted to try the latest Win7 build.

I found some good documentation on MSDN about UEFI booting. Supposedly, we need to force the Z690 to boot into EFI mode. On the Insyde H2BIOS firmware that means tapping (not holding) the ESC key durng bootup. This will bring up an EFI menu. Then you choose boot from file and select the bootx64.efi file. You have to do this EVERY time you boot from the DVD or from the HDD. Unfortunately, because the H2BIOS emulates the BIOS, I think it's causing Win7 to get confused about what mode it's running under. So I actually managed to get the install to work in EFI mode, but then would occasionally get BSODS after that. Also, I would need to do this "boot from file" trick every time which is not feasible.

So, the scary part is Microsoft and the firmware manufacturers need to get this problem sorted out sooner rather than later or this will just be a repeat of all the hardware problems with Vista. If more systems will be using UEFI in the future then they need to have a way to reliably install and/or disable BIOS emulation.

 

BTW - found the easy way around this. I just got my Z back from Japan and am reloading Vista onto my Z90NS (same as the Z5xx series in the USA). The EFI issue happens with slipstreamed SP1 and higher installs. I happen to have a RTM Vista Ultimate DVD (yes, I paid for it), and can install Vista Ultimate x64 just fine. I'd rather do the slipstreamed install, but oh well.

 

That's what I ended up doing as well. The problem, though, is when it comes to Win7 -- it will probably have the EFI issue from the start. I expect that sfiorito's method should be able to overcome that when the time comes.

 

lol, I spent almost an hour trying to figure out how to force the Z to boot from EFI! Where'd you find that?

So you're saying that, theoretically, if you installed Win7 x64 from that method, and then made sure to boot the installation on the HDD via EFI every single time thereafter, you wouldn't have a problem, right?

If that's the case, I would think that the easiest solution for Win7 would be for either:

A) Microsoft releases an x64 version of the disc that omits support for EFI booting

B) You take your official Win7 disc or .iso and remove the EFI booting support using the Sergio McFly method:
http://blog.aproductofsociety.org/?p=13

The simple solution is as follows (taken from: Sergio Mcfly’s Blog):

1) Download Vista SP1/2008 x64 ISO from MSDN, orgrab your CD
2) Create 3 folders c:\efi-iso c:\efi-exe c:\efi-dvd
3) Download oscdimg.exe from here into c:\efi-exe
4) Extract iso using 7Zip or WinRAR (Or copy the contents of the DVD) into c:\efi-dvd
5) Start up a command prompt (Start -> Run -> cmd)
6) Type: cd c:\efi-exe
7) Type: oscdimg -n -m -bc:\efi-dvd\boot\etfsboot.com c:\efi-dvd c:\efi-iso\server2008dvd.iso

 

I activated Vista Home Premium x64 using the Home Premium key on the bottom of my laptop, and installed it using a Vista RTM (w/o SP1) x64 OEM disc from when Vista first was released.

I've activated my OEM copy of Vista for the desktop system I built three different times now, but have had to call Microsoft to complete the activation because Vista sees that I had changed motherboards (and suspects that I'm trying to install the same copy of Vista on multiple machines, when I actually just upgraded my system).

 

I am able to activate my Vista Business x64 by using Product Key from bottom.
I was using a key reader to get key from Windows and used that key to activate, somehow the key didn't work even it was right from factory recovered.

 

Build 7000 (the Beta) doesn't have the issue. I just tried it and am probably keeping it on my system. A few programs aren't working but after I got Vista x64 up and running with a clean install, it was using something like 1.7+ GB of memory without even loading any software which would add some processes. I also noticed that prior to loading any software or tweaking, Windows 7 (build 7000) had 50 processes.

As far as battery life, it seems to be a bit better under Windows 7 as of now.

I may have to remove it if I can't get Adobe Captivate to work properly, but I think it's more Captivate than Windows 7; I was having issues even with Vista with the new Version 4.

Although I do have a unique problem which I'm not sure if any of you are seeing. My older Z (a Z90) doesn't recognize bluetooth; it's not even showing up as an unknown device. It's definitely a 64-bit only problem because for fun, I used the Japanese restore partition to restore the Z to its original state, and lo and behold, bluetooth worked just fine.

 

Build 7000 definitely has the EFI booting problem. That's the first build I tried installing. Everything since Vista SP1 has EFI booting.

 

I found the way how to prevent Z boot from EFI.
Hit ESC when turn on your Z to lauch boot menu.
DVD Windows x64 is now booting. You will notice "Press any key to boot from ..." in graphic text mode. Then Bootmenu will appear.
You will see following options:
- ACPI....../...../(CDROM...)
- Model name of DVD drive
- Model name of hard drive
Select second option and DVD will boot. You will see above text in DOS format.
In concluded, if you see DVD boot text in graphic mode --> EFI boot
If text is in DOS mode --> BIOS mode --> You can install x64 Windows whatever you want.

 

Anh, nice find! I can confirm this works. I was so worried with trying to force EFI booting, that I didn't even think of selecting the DVD option in the boot manager. Good job!