VPC-EE23FX/T Recovery wizard in 1 day.

Hello, I'm new to this forum and to Sony laptops. I've tried searching but nothing with my model number was found.

I purchased this VPC-EE23FX/T yesterday evening at walmart. I started customizing it but haven't gotten very far. So far I have;
1. Uninstalled the trial version of norton and installed Comodo antivirus/firewall.
2. Uninstalled the trial version of office 2010 to install my copy of office 2007.

I just got back to it a little while ago but instead of booting to windows it started the recovery wizard. It's been 18 hours since purchase and problems already. I decided since I have no personal information on it yet I would let it do a restore back to original condition.

So my question is how do I tell what went wrong? Will it make a log or something? The popup box that came up didn't give any information, just a couple of options for doing a restore. Has anyone else had this problem so soon after purchase?

The only thing I could see I've changed that could cause a problem is Comodo but there's no reason it should. This is a computer for my boss to work with so it has to work well. It has to have good antivirus/firewall, norton will not do.

Any help would be appreciated, if it does this again after I've restored it once it's going back to walmart.

Thank You
Rich

 

EE comes with the just annouced AMD platform and it's really new so you won't see any review here and probably not very many early adapters.

As you go through the restore process, one thing I will make sure is that there is not a default on creating recovery DVD that forces you to go into the restore -- not to actually do the restore but to create the DVDs. Check BIOS to make sure boot devices are set properly. Past Sony usually use F2/F10 for BIOS and restore, so make sure you didn't press them unintentionally.

 

Thank you for answering so quickly.

 

Why are you running recovery on a brand new machine? It's just going to put all the sony apps back on?

 

To be clear, I didn't run recovery, I started the computer and instead of booting to windows it ran the vaio care recovery wizard.

The recovery wizard just finished and I just started to try and customize this computer again and have the same issue. Norton uninstalled and rebooted just fine, Office 2010 uninstalled but when I tried to reboot it went straight to the recovery wizard again.

Before I run the wizard again let me ask some questions, maybe I read something wrong. Office 2010 on the new vaio is a trial correct? I have to pay for it if I use it. At least that's what I think it said. We own office 2007 and were are not buying 2010. If I can't uninstall the 2010 trial can I install our 2007 version?

Since I've now determined why the recovery wizard runs I'll try the help chat again. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get someone who can answer a question.

 

Office 2010 is not a trial, it's a "starter" edition. It won't expire like a trial, but it's crippled.

As for the recovery wizard I don't think that should have come up at all. It should've booted right into windows. If you tap a bunch of keys between post and boot...that would cause recovery to come up. Either way it sounds like you're in pretty deep already. If you are recovering the machine that can easily take an hour or two.

 

The recovery wizard does come up and seems to be caused by uninstalling office 2010. I'm online with support again right now but it's not going any better.

Update:
Online chat finally admitted they could not answer my questions or help me in any way. This brings up major issues I'm hoping someone here can help with.

If uninstalling office 2010 causes the recovery wizard to come up and not let windows boot will uninstalling other apps do the same? If I customize this computer with our industries software and customize that software with our companies info and settings and then uninstall something we don't need am I going to loose all of the customizing.

Were running a business and I need to know if this is going to be an issue. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

I don't think you would want to have an office 2010 and then install 2007, that's for sure.

It is definitely the first time I heard un-installing a software actually triggers the recovery -- maybe Sony is subsidized by Microsoft? You got a new machine and Office 2010 is also pretty new, so I am afraid there won't be a lot of good answer -- I'm sure eventually you will find more similar complaints, be it in Sony section or other laptop section.

Right now, the best advice I could give would be to complete this restore process, create the recovery DVD if you have not done so already, then perform a clean or semi-clean install of Windows.

Unfortunately, no one has done a semi-clean install on this machine, but you could probably search on the official E-series thread and see if anyone has done it on the current EB (Intel platform). It's usually the 2nd reboot in the recovery process where the Windows has been installed with enough drivers where you can stop the process and avoid installing applications, like office 2010.

Hope this helps.

 

Just got through with the first level of phone support. He is referring me to a higher level of phone support but because of a computer problem he could not transfer me. I've been at this six straight hours, I think I'm just going to give up and take it back to walmart.

Apparently this model is less than a month old and I have just stumbled upon an unknown issue. If anyone else is looking at getting this model I suggest waiting until it's fixed. We did figure out that you can back out of the repair wizard and restart into windows but every time you restart windows it goes back to the repair wizard.

I am really stressed out now. My boss did something to his old Sony and needed a new one this morning and he insist on a sony with the same size screen. I spent all afternoon yesterday trying to find one but no one here in OKC carries them except best buy has some smaller models. I just happened to stumble on this one at wal mart later last night, other walmarts we checked at yesterday don't carry sony.

So now I have the last sony of adequate size in OKC but it can't be customized for our purposes. Where can I get a new one by tomorrow?

Update:
I did call back they transferred me to the higher level of tech support and they didn't pick up the phone. This is a bug in this new model so it's not going to be fixed over the phone anyway. Thank you for responding to my questions.

Maybe some one needs to post this as a bug so any current forum members don't buy this model.