Vaio Recovery Dilema (Pictures)

So many users in our beloved forum are running through bottlenecks and problems for the Recovery partition, the way it work, the various options in there, and me too Im having this scenario that I think its simple but still need help from you guys.

1. When I bought the VGN-SZ48GN, it was very ok, I just added one 1GB RAM module and viola, its fast as a rocket, the first thing I did was is to create Recovery Media Kit, after 2x trials I managed to burn it to a DVD-DL, but after like 1 week, I discovered that the EISE Partition has appeared suddenly in the Windows Explorer (IT SHOULD NOT), another week has passed, and through that week I partitioned my HDD Using Vista (SHRINK) to avail 3 more partitions.

2. When this was done, I noticed that DRIVE Letters (D: E: F: G are not in the right order, so I Changed the Drive letters accordingly, (Without Touching the Recovery Partition)

3. After the restart there is NO RECOVERY Partition visible in MY COMPUTER, when I go to Disk Management it shows as the ((Picture Attaced)).

4. as you can see the EISA looks EMPTY, YET when I start the recovery from the start menu, it starts OK, but on the other hand if I try F10 @ boot time, i get weired option to edit my bootloader (not the recovery screen).

WHAT I WANT IS:::::::

1. Restore the contents of the EISA, to be able to recover my system from the HDD (MUCH FASTER).

2. MAKE THINGS WORK like it should.

3. I have no problem with my OS now, but I want to be ready to recovery whenever a problem arrises.

Thanks inadvance

 

Sorry here is another CLEAR SHOT

 

I've just looked at my system and I have exactly the same image as yours. Well with fewer partitions. My EISA is the same size and the only difference is yours says Healthy (Active, EISA Configuration) and mine only says Healthy (EISA Configuration).

So besides the partitions it looks okay.

 

So That It Means its working? I guess so, but why it is stated as FREE (In the Second Shot) Free space = 100%

This is Weird Truely.

Another issue is, I guess If I want to do the RECOVERY from withing Vista Running, it will do it OK, BUt I guess the Problem will arise, if I wanted to do the RECOVERY in DOS using the F10 Key

And let me tell you sth., to do the recovery from withing VISTA, then you might not be having BIG NASTY PROBLEMS, but if You cant boot into Vista and need to do the RECOVERY, so we will be xxx.

Any Ideas to Resolve this issue?

Thanks for your reply

 

I have no idea what you are trying to say, but I can tell you you CANNOT run the recovery from within Vista. To use the hidden partition for recovery, you MUST use the F10 key during a reboot.

You can safely try that. It does not immediately jump into the restore process. It first presents a menu. So you would at least be able to see if the partition is still bootable. I think the fact that it is marked ACTIVE makes things a bit suspect. What happened in that week where "the EISE Partition has appeared suddenly in the Windows Explorer"? It didn't just "suddenly" appear something made it appear.

Gary

 

You are right, I must have done sth. that made it appear inside Explorer, But TRUELY I DONT KNOW, Maybe when I used Disk SHRINK FEATURE in Vista, and/or Changing the drive letters after the shrink process.

BUT, Now when I use F10, I Get a message of (OPTIONS TO EDIT MY BOOTLOADER) and I dont know nothing about that so I (ESC) and reboot.

Finally, Inside Vista when I RUN the Recovery application it says at the very beginning (CHECKING RECOVERY PARTITION), and after 3 sec. it gives me the 3 options:

1. Create Recovery Media
2. Backup Data
3. Recover my Computer.

So This is what I mean by its being able to RUN from Within Vista.

Love You Guys!

 

OK, I see what you mean now. You are running the recovery app installed under Vista which in turn will attempt to use the Recovery Partition to restore your machine. I thought you meant you were directly running something within the Recovery Partition itself.

I am not sure how you are going to fix the F10 issue. It obviously does not like what has happened to the Recovery Partition and I think that relates to whatever made it now visible and marked as active.

On an FZ series machine if you restore via the Recovery DVD set rather than using the F10 key it apparently wipes the entire drive and restores EVERYTHING including the hidden partition which would re-enable F10 functionality. But I do NOT know if that is how it works on YOUR model.

If I were in your predicament here is what I would do.

Use something like Norton Ghost or Acronis to make an image of the ENTIRE drive to DVD's, not just the partitions but the whole drive.

Make a copy of all your data on a separate CD or DVD. Make not of all the additional applications you have installed and make sure you have installation media for each.

Restore the machine using the original recovery DVD's you made.

See if the F10 key functions then. If so, copy your data back on and reinstall any additional applications you had installed.

If the F10 key does NOT work at this point, you may just have to live with the fact that you will have to use the DVD's rather than the hidden partition for future re-installs. Now you can either copy your data back and reinstall the various apps OR you could just restore the image you made earlier. (Which might be faster than reinstalling the apps.)

One more point. The reality is a image of your C: partition using Ghost or Acronis or other similar software is VASTLY superior to the image stored in the hidden partition anyway. The one in the hidden portion has all the bloatware and none of YOU personalization of the machine. An image you make yourself has everything set up the way YOU want the machine. If you have to do a recovery, which one of those two images is going to get you back up and running quicker? Even thought the one on the hard drive may load faster you will have to add to the that the time it will take you to reinstall all YOUR applications and redo any setting changes you might have made.

Gary