Vaio Upgrade

antodeco

Hi All,
Just wondering if anyone can help me!
I have a Sony Vaio running Windows 98 and I want to upgrade the OS.
I have heard that you need the recovery disks to do this. I moved house a short while ago, and those disks went missing! Has anyone any advise on what or how I can do this? All i want is to stick win 2000 on it. I have 128mb RAM. I have the win 2000 cd, i just dont want to try it and wipe that whole laptop!
Thanks

joePC

I take it you want to back up all your files before wiping & installing 2k,

Best thing to do, Use a program e.g Patition Magic, create a small partition big enough to hold all the files you want to back up, Boot to Win 98 put all files onto that partition, then wipe the win98 partition and install 2k. When installed you can tranfer all files over & reformat the backup partition to NTFS.

Its quite easy but sounds a bit difficult,

Thanks & good luck.

Thanks JoePC

antodeco

hmm, that seems difficult! I was to keep it on the FAT system, as I have a few progs that will only work on it. I have another pc running win2k on FAT and it runs like a dream. I have aload of progs for the laptop itself (battery scope and all the other vaio essential progs) will they not be able to run if I partition them as their link in the system will be gone?
Thanks

antodeco

so what youre saying is i can jsut pop in the win2k CD in and itll upgrade the OS without wiping anything else? I am really afraid to upgrade it, as I rely alot on it! Will it just do a normall upgrade of windows, leaving everything else ok?

Stephen

You can, but it tends to be unstable and generally ****ty. Everything seems to work much better if you just wipe the '98 installation first. You should be able to download all the Vaio software off sony's website - maybe you could get all that stuff first and throw it onto a CD along with your documents and favourites and so on.

antodeco

Ive gone onto the website and you cant get it. It also doesnt help the fact that the serial nubmer is faded underneath the laptop, and I cant read it (sony need this to verify your product!)
I dont mind wiping all the non-essential stuff. Im jsut afraid of losing all the sony software, and nothing will work again!

antodeco

hmmm! Another problem all of a sudden popped up! I installed norton the other day and havent used my laptop since then. I tried booting it back up again yesterday, and its coming up saying the norton program cannot be found, then crashed and says himem.sys is missing! i cant even load it in safe mode or step by step. So my laptop cannot load up at all now! Any ideas?!

Billybong

OK here is what to do ....

Create a Windows 98 floppy boot disk. If you have already created one and don't have another copy of Windows 98 got to www.bootdisk.com and download the Windows 98 SE boot disk. You will need a blank floopy disk for this.

Using the boot disk you can boot into a dos prompt ( make sure your BIOS/CMOS is set to boot A: first ). You will then receive an A: prompt.

Type :

copy himem.sys c:\windows <press enter>

you receive a prompt that the file already exists ensure to overwrite it.

Reboot the computer (with the floppy disk out of the drive ), if the issue continues to occur verify that the config.sys is properly setup.
To verify this, again boot off the floppy disk. Type :

edit c:\config.sys <press enter>

There should be a line for himem.sys reading:

DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS

Ensure that this is correct, if not modify, safe and reboot without the floppy disk installed.

If this still doesn't solve the problem the best option is the reformat and install your Windows 2k. You can back-up your files from dos but you are limited to what media you can backup to. To back up in dos, boot up on the Windows 98 Boot disk. Backing up as follows.
First change to your C: drive ( or you other partitions/drives - where ever your files are) type your drive letter e.g. c:\

You will be give the commang prompt c:
type DIR <press enter> to show files and folders in the directory.
type cd [folder name] <press enter> to change to the folder you want.
Type copy [file name].[extension] A:\ <press enter> to copy the file of your choice to A:\ (put in a blank floppy for this) e.g. copy myfile.doc a:\ <enter>

This will take some time to back up all you files but at least its a way.

Before you install Windows 2000 check that Sony supply them. I used to work for Sony Vaio-link and know the limitation of availible drivers for non-preinstalled O/S's.
Logon to www.vaio-link.com and enter their downloads section. You need your serial number - you can get this from the BIOS (press F2 at the Sony/Vaio logo screen)

Check what drivers are availible before you install 2000. Download all drivers that you need and that are availble.

When you are ready to install 2000, set the BIOS to boot off the CD ROM and have your Windows 2000 CD in the drive. Create new paritions (if desired and format ** all date will be lost ). Install Windows 2000 and when required install all the drivers you have downloaded.

And now tha bad news :
1) Any Sony software that came with your original configuration will not always work on upgraded OS's. Alot of the software is part of the Original OS image and cannot be obtained from the web-site and Sony won't send it to you either. There may have been some software on the original CD's, which you no longer have but this softwra emay not run on your up-graded OS

2) Sony don't support upgraded OS's so if you have a problem in future with the laptop you will have to recover back to the original OS before Sony will look at it.

Any now for some good news. You can get replacement recovery CD's (containing your original OS) from Vaio-link. They cost about €20.

Check out www.vaio-link.com for a phone number - its a Dublin number.

Other than that if your information is of vital importance, i offer a databackup service. Just PM for details.