Can't boot recovery partition on Sony Vaio SR

Hey all,

I upgraded to Windows 7, and want to install the default Vista when I sell it. After the Win 7 install, however, I cannot boot off of the recovery partition. It exists and all is there, but the mbr is fubar'd. What can I do?

 

Did you burn off recovery DVD's?

 

How are you trying to boot from it? (You should be hitting F10 during a cold boot.) I didn't think the MBR is in play when booting from the recovery partition.

Gary

 

I, unfortunately, do not have the recovery discs.

And, none of the function keys get me anywhere.

All it does is go straight to a failed Windows 7 boot manager:

"An unexpected error has occurred, 0xc0000034"

I deleted the main Windows partition, but the recovery partition is 100% intact.

 

If you hit the F10 key right after you startup from a full powered off state and you get nothing, then the recovery partition is not 100% intact.

Gary

 

Solution found.

The recovery partition is, 100%, intact.

The issue was that the boot manager was having serious issues. I.e., fresh Windows 7 install decided to change the mbr (and ignore the recovery partition).

For anyone having the same problem, install a fresh copy of Vista on the large partition.

Search for the ".exe" file on the recovery partition (after installing Vista) that starts the "Create Recovery Discs" wizard.

You will then be able to create your rescue DVDs and re-do the entire hard-drive.

You could also fiddle around with Super Grub, but that may cause more, new, issues.

 

Even after you install Vista the recovery partition should not be visible to Vista at all. I think this might be the issue as to why you could not boot to it. If I remember correctly it has to be "hidden" for the BIOS F10 boot to work.

As a test, now that you have a corrected MBR, try a shut down and as the machine boots up hit F10 and tell me if you are able to actually boot into the recovery partition or not. The reason I didn't think this was an MBR issue is I thought other folks have been able to boot into the recovery partition regardless of the status of the rest of the drive including the MBR.

Gary

 

Looks like I was a bit pre-mature there.

Upon attempting to boot the discs, I get "CDBoot: Couldn't find BOOTMGR".

I wish I would have known about the recover partition needing to be hidden, I could have quickly fixed that.

For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea, after getting that error, to wipe the HDD.

:/

 

I am not 100% certain about the partition needing to be hidden. But even so that should not have any effect on your booting from the DVD's you just created.

Let me get this straight, you ran the exe from the recovery partition and it was able to create the two DVD set, right? And then when you try to boot from the first of the two DVD's you get this error?

That makes no sense. (Yeah, like I am telling YOU that, huh?)

What happens when you do the F10 thing after a cold boot?

Gary

 

It created three DVDs successfully.

When I tried to boot from the 1st of the three, I get this error.

I raged, and formatted the HDD.

Still, the error persists.

F10 doesn't do anything, and didn't do anything (especially now that there is no recovery).

 

Oh so you wiped out the recovery partition now too? Well, game over. Not much you can do now.

Gary

 

What do the DVDs do, then?

Shouldn't they restore the whole HDD?

It says that they do full recovery of the drive (I popped them in my main PC).

 

If you boot from them they should present a menu of options. On is to recovery the ENTIRE drive, including the hidden partition. Another option is to recovery ONLY the C: partition. A third might be to install drivers and apps. (This third option varies on different models).

So when booted on your main PC you see a menu, but on the VAIO you get this error???

Gary

 

I can run the DVD on my laptop from Vista.

I, however, cannot boot off of it.

 

Didn't you say you were able to boot it on another machine?? Or did I misunderstand what you meant?

If you boot it on the Vaio SR you get that ""CDBoot: Couldn't find BOOTMGR" message, is that correct?

Gary

 

Correct on both parts.

Will boot on my computer, will not boot on the Vaio.

 

This is very strange. As a test, are you able to boot from any other DVD on the Vaio SR?

Gary

 

I am, which makes it all the more bizarre. I've run USB booting, and have also used a Vista DVD to re-install.

:/

 

This makes no sense what so ever. (I know, I know, you already realize that!) You can boot from the disk on another machine. You can boot another disk on this machine. But you can't boot from this disk on this machine. I am totally stumped.

If I recall though, the rationale for this was to be able to reinstall the OS from the DVD's at some future date if you decide to sell the machine, right? If so, when and if that time comes you might just borrow an external USB DVD drive and boot the disk from that.

This one has me stumped. Maybe someone else here has an idea.

Gary

 

I am having a similar issue on my SR190. I had been using Windows 7 since last year, but my system came with Windows Vista originally. I had created recovery discs successfully when I had got the computer but never had to use them. A few weeks ago, I decided to sell my computer but keep my Windows 7, so wanted to revert back to Windows Vista in factory installed condition before selling the notebook. Inserted the discs and started complete system restore to factory condition through the discs, and it failed at 18% with error 305:64 (some memory referencing error/faulty discs error). This kept happening again and again after several attempts. Giving up, when I started my computer, there was no OS found because the discs corrupted the 7 partition. Frustrated, I decided to wipe and clean my HD, which also deleted my recovery partition obviously. I reinstalled Windows 7 and am now wondering how to get back to Vista (I have its product key sticker with me but no way to install it). I wonder why my Sony Vista recovery discs turned out faulty when the wizard had said they were created successfully. My system is still covered under extended warranty (limited to hardware though). Any ideas what I should do to get back Vista?

 

Unlimited Heights,

Only one option. Contact Sony and buy a set of recovery disks.

Gary