Vaio Z ("old") + C300 SSD = No Operating System Found

Hi!

I have exchanged the HDD of my Vaio Z4 with a C300 Crucial 256GB SSD.
I installed Win 7 64bit ultimate from the scratch (allowing Win7 to set up the drive during the process).
The current bios is: R5031M3A (I was using the R4044M3 bios before with the same result.)

I have the following problem:
When I restart the laptop either as cold boot or from hibernation, I always get the message "operating system not found". This problem occurs every single time. When I press "alt+ctrl+del" in order to do a "hot" reboot, I have no issues anymore. Also from standby or doing a reboot, the SSD boots without a problem...

I am currently wondering what is going wrong.

The drive seems to work perfectly. Benchmarks are as they should be. The drive is properly recognized with all necessary settings installed...

I wonder right now, if I should try to install Win7 again. But before use a partition manager to format and set up the drive properly... Or is there another issue I have overlooked?

Any advice or suggestion?

 

Is the BIOS maybe using an other device to start up the OS?

 

I have set it to use the "hdd" as first device to boot from... :/

 

I finally found a solution to my problem. I installed a bios on my latop allowing to alter advanced bios settings (did this before already).

The following being enabled did the trick: It is called "AHCI Option ROM support". Apparently allowing for an AHCI controller to appear as external card. Enabling this option solved my problem. I am very glad about this... however, I would appreciate very much if someone could explain to me what this does and how it makes the difference... thanks in advance

 

AHCI option ROM usually enables even more features like more than 4 SATA ports, etc... - it probably changes the boot process as well and indirectly solve your problem.

 

Thank you!

Everything is working fine now

 

Hi Jorlin, I'm Gilberto.
I installed an Intel SSD 80Gb G2 34nm and I have the same issue you got but on "Sony Vaio VGN-SR21M/S".
First time the ssd worked pretty well, later I put the old hdd on for doing some backups, and then when I inserted again the ssd the notebook no longer find it (even on Bios), it always show "Operating System Not Found" message.
I tried a guide for enable AHCI using "symcmos" but seem not to work with mine bios, I cannot get the .txt file useful for view and modify AHCI enabler value.
How have you enabled "AHCI Option ROM support" on your VAIO?
Thank you for attention
Gil

 

You need "advanced settings" enabled within your bios to access these settings. I guess with all laptops sony only allows very restricted access to all bios settings with the installed default bios. Since you have an VGN-SR, I cannot provide you with any other bios or a link.
Try to look if there is a VGN-SR bios posted here on the forum that enables advanced settings... I am sure that there will also be a description on how to flash it.

 

Thanks Jorlin, I'll continue search around and never give up.
Dam Vaio BIOS restrictions...

 

If you do not find a bios, you can try the method decribed here:
http://feature-enable.blogspot.com/2009/07/enable-vt-on-insydeh2o-based-sony-vaio.html

I have managed to enable the advanced settings and VT in the dafault bios on my VGN-Z this way. It appears more complicated than it finally is. It actually is very easy - just make sure you follow all steps 1 by 1. Make sure you read the whole thing first and make sure you understand what the guy writes before actually trying it...


Hope this helps