Vaio SZ croaked: Operating System Not Found

I'm guessing hard drive.

When I go into BIOS, under "hard drive," it says "Not Found" or something to that effect.

Unfortunately Sony won't help me out at all without charging me (I think they said $70 just to talk to me on the phone?!) because apparently I bought the SZ a year and a week ago or something.

They also won't send me recovery discs without charging me another $30.

I love the laptop, but Sony's lack of ANY help is pretty upsetting.

Anyways, I pulled the hard drive just to make sure everything is seated properly, and it was.

Is a hard drive the only thing that could be causing the error message?

Any other way to reinstall Vista without the recovery discs, like by calling Microsoft or something? I'm on a rented laptop right now and using XP and I'd *really* like to get back to Vista.

On an unrelated note, I have 2GB of ram, can I pop in 4GB (2 x 2GB) without issue? I figure I may as well upgrade.

 

Vaios have really terrible hard drive mounting brackets that make them very susceptible to shock, every time I see someone with a Vaio I see them as holding a time bomb, and I am wondering how long until their drive dies.

The drive will likely have to be replace. You can try putting it in another computer and recovering data off it, but since the BIOS don't recognize it... I think the data is pretty far gone. You'll need to replace the drive, and as long as you have a key on your computer (do you have a key on your computer?) for Vista, you should be able to install with a disc of that version of Vista (borrow from friends?) or you could just pay the 30 bucks for the recovery CDs...

 

Well, my SZ650 did exactly the same this morning. Can a kind soul point to instructions to remove hd to try to recover data on another computer? Thanks

 

Well, recovering data depends on what resources you have available to you and how much you want to spend if you don't have the proper tools currently.

At the least, I would hope to have a desktop with a free SATA port. (I am assuming the SZ has a sata hard drive?) Well, laptop sata drives use the same connectors as desktop ones... pretty cool, no adapter needed like older IDE laptop drives.

Since the drive is not currently recognized, my suggestion is to FREEZE IT. Drives not being recognized usually is a sign of a bad circuit board, not bad platters. Sometimes cooling the board enough will give you the time you need to get important data off. Put it in an ESD bag, put it in a freezer bag, put it in the freezer. Once it's been in there for a few hours, pull it out, hook it up to a desktop (while still in the bag) and put it in a bowl full of ice (I say this because I suspect not everyone is as fortunate as me to have a setup just for this, where you can hook hard drives to your computer while they are still in your freezer - I've got a mini fridge with a desktop on top, the cables run right into the freezer ) Make sure that the drive is sealed nicely enough that as the ice melts no moisture is going to get into the bag. Just make sure the top of the bag extends out of the bowl, put the drive on top of some ice at the bottom, and then put some more ice on top. Boot up the desktop, check if the drive is recognized in the BIOS. If it is seen, boot into your desktop's OS and get your important data as quickly as possible. If it's not, you can 1) Try replacing the board yourself by ordering a good drive online and swapping the boards. The model numbers must be IDENTICAL, down to the production code. 2) Send the drive to a service like drive savers, which costs between 3000 and 5000 USD. Though if you have good home owner's insurance, sometimes they cover it. I work at a PC store that sends people to drive savers, and they have stated that they get about 2 clients daily who have coverage by their insurance, they only have a co pay, usually around 500 dollars. Whatever your data is worth.

If it were me, I'd try the freezer, then toss the drive aside for a rainy day if that didn't work... and just buy a new hard drive.

 

Thanks very much! kind of you to spend the time to give the advice.

visitor

 

I hope you don't mind a supplementary question. I have the drive (which is SATA) in the freezer. I also have a SATA hard disk enclosure which has a USB cable out. If I connect the drive to the USB connector into another laptop, will the laptop see the drive as another USB hard disk?

 

Yes, it would... you could even put the whole enclosure in a plastic bag and keep that on ice in order to help keep it cool.

 

Very important: don't forget to get a piece of wax and red-hot needles. Haitian wax should be the best one.

 

Wax? You mean to like seal the board off from moisture?
Maybe officially, but I recover data off "dead" drives all the time by putting it in an ESD bag then a freezer bag.

 

Wow, turned on the computer and it's working now randomly.

I'm posting on it right now.

What gives? It is common for hard drives to do this as they die?

At least I've gotten my data off of it.

 

At least one person is lucky today! Good for you. I'm having no luck...

 

It's possible that it was too hot before, or simply a bad connection. I'd run a chkdsk and your manufacturers testing tools to make sure it's running on par with how they think it should be.

 

Despite Hep's great suggestion, my hard disk was well and truly dead. Now this is the second hard disk that has failed on me in the last 6 months - the first one was on my other SZ, an SZ160, and of course this one, an SZ650.

That seems like awfully bad luck for one person, until in a conversation this morning, somebody commented on another person who had recurrent hd failures which were supposedly traced back to the docking station.

Well, the only thing my two SZ laptops have in common (other than my handling, which is very gentle!) is that I use the same docking station for the two.

Any comments on this theory? Seems plausible to me, but not my expertise...

 

Thanks for all the help guys.

Maybe it was a bad connection, but I tried it after taking out and reinstalling my HD to no avail. Then, it just started working.

I think I'm just going to go ahead and upgrade to a 250GB hard drive because my 160 keeps filling up, which is really annoying. Hopefully I can transfer everything to the new hard drive.