Vaio VGN-FW290 Hard Drive and Windows 7 Upgrade Questions

Greetings,

I have a Sony Vaio VGN-FW290 with Vista Home Premium 64x that I’ve had for approximately one year. I would like to upgrade it by replacing the original 5400rpm HD with a 7200rpm HD and a fresh install of Windows 7 Home Premium 64x.

Here are the questions I have:

Is there a preferred hard drive that works well in this style of laptop? I’m considering a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 or WD Scorpio Black.

If I install the new hard drive, can I boot from the Windows 7 installation disk and go? Will the basic hardware function properly at this point; CD drive, internet connection for Windows installation, etc.? Is there anything else I need to be aware of?

According to Sony eSupport, the VGN-FW290 model is “Windows 7 upgradeable”. Does this mean all the Sony Windows 7 drivers are available to provide the full functionality of the computer with a fresh install? There’s only a handful of Windows 7 Home Premium 64x drivers, on the Sony website, compared to the Vista Home Premium 64x OS. Do I use a combination of Vista drivers along with Windows 7 drivers? For example, I have the ATI Radeon HD 3650 video adapter and a Blu-ray read/write drive, but don’t see a Windows 7 driver for them.

I would prefer not to upgrade the original Vista OS if possible. Is this the best approach, new HD - fresh Windows installation, or is there an easier/better way?

Thanks in advance.

 

My VGN-FW290 was ordered with a 250gig 7200rpm drive. Turned out they installed a Hitachi Travelstar 7K320. I waited til the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 was available through vendors and installed the 500gig 7200rpm version in the FW. (Seagate ST9500420ASG)

My Hitachi was unbalanced from the get-go as shown by a buzzing from the FW's hard drive hatch. With the Seagate, blissful quiet and scorching fast performance. I've edited 1080 HDV on the new drive (OS & footage on the same drive is often a huuuge no-no)

With the Seagate under the right palmrest of the FW, there's no hint of heat. Every so often in a dead-quiet room, there's a "CLUNK" when the drive parks its head, but that's the worst of it. I've been using my Momentus for 20-hour days since May 2009.

As for Win7, I've been running the Release Candidate (Win7 Ultimate) since the day I installed the Momentus. After a clean install, pretty much everything worked with the exception of the card readers and the S1/AVMode buttons.

Although there was no on-screen display, the volume buttons DID cause the systray volume to ramp up and down.

I didn't have to search for video drivers, the one in Win7 properly recognized the ATI 3650 with my 1080 full HD screen -AND- most amazing of all, Win7 handled hot-plugging of the HDMI to my HDTV without a hitch! Under Vista64, I always had to dig through the control settings to get the two 1080 screens to mirror properly

The Blu-ray burner was recognized.

Wi-Fi worked.

Bluetooth worked with my mouse as I recall, but when I bought a Motorola S9 Stereo Bluetooth headset, Win7 RC eventually sent me to Broadcom's site to download enhanced drivers.

The Alps Touchpad was useable but there were no control-panel gadgets to fine-tune it.

Over the months, I picked up a few tips browsing through the FW specific threads and got the rest of the nits ironed out... all this STILL on the Win7 Release Candidate!

The only moment was a problem trying to install WinDVD BD from my recovery DVDs into Win7 RC. Adobe Encore CS4 let me burn a Blu-ray project, but I just wasn't able to enjoy my Blu-ray rentals. Just this weekend, I stumbled on this blog post and it helped me complete the last piece of the puzzle:

http://anebg.net/2009/09/20/intervideo-windvd-bd-for-vaio/

After installing the above, SOASUS-70201315-US.EXE from Sony's driver site will patch the AACS keys in WinDVD.

Looking back, I was not a happy camper with the Sony bloatware they crammed into Vista64. (Needless stuff popping up at launch, endless background stuff) The newer OS provided enough out-of-the-box functionality that I wasn't so dependent on Sony's site, so I'm lovin' it.

Now that Win7 is officially out, Sony finally updated their driver listing for the FW290. I'd still maintain caution on install it all.

Once I finish up a few high-def editing projects, I'll go buy Win7 (full version), wipe the Momentus, and happily install anew.

 

CarterTG,

Thanks for the detailed response.

It sounds like you’re pretty happy with your computer now. Is your laptop significantly faster with the Seagate hard drive and Windows 7? Even after all the bloatware removal and configuring in Vista, I still think my laptop should perform much better than it does. It has a 2.4 Ghz processor and 4 Gigs of ram and takes a while to even boot up, and I have only two programs checked for startup in msconfig.

 

I went for the T9600 2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo with CAD and mobile high-def editing in mind.

On Vista64 with the originally configured 4GB and 250gig 7200rpm drive, playback from the Premiere Pro CS4 timeline was painful at best. High-Def MPEG4 videos (H.264) played back at maybe 2 frames per second. CPU and RAM meter widgets had the needle buried in red.

I took a gamble suspecting the stuff I was doing needed more RAM, so after painfully outfitting it with two sticks of 4GB $ODIMMs (8GB max), swapping in the Momentus, shedding the bloatware, and installing Win7 RC, the problems went away.

The 500gigs provide oodles of storage space for video and dishes it out fast enough to the editing program.

Where the system previously choked on 1080 MPEG4 clips, the upgraded setup plays things back nicely. Now the CPU meter sits at around 38% when pulling tasks like this. Memory guage is around 30%

Firing up WinDVD BD and playing back a Blu-ray movie, the CPU meter is at 45% and Memory at 35% under Windows 7 RC. Oh sweet 1080 high def.. how I love thee

Although I haven't tried, I think my setup would stumble with AVCHD-encoded High Def footage (much more work for the CPU to decode on-the-fly) ... 3.2Ghz processors wasn't offered in the FW at the time I was ordering. I don't plan on getting into hard-drive or flash-drive HD camcorders any time soon.

As for boot-up time, my previous Win XP lappie sported a single 1.8Ghz Pentium M.

Vista64 on a 2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo gave me a very welcome boot-up time.. With Win7, it FEELS like it's instant-on... by the time I take my bluetooth mouse out of its pouch and turn it on, it feels like I'm ready to go... at least that's my perception coming from a 1.8Ghz dinosaur.