Recovery disks may not work on any hard drive

masterwriter

I bought a Sony laptop recently. I contacted sony about the fact there were no recovery disks. Sony phoned me today. Here is some of the conversation:

Sony: There is a back up partition on the hard drive
Me: What if the hard drive fails?
Sony: If the hard drive fails the laptop will have to be sent back to Sony
to have a new hard drive fitted
Me: If I had recovery disks I could get a new hard drive as I did when
my old, not sony ,laptop hard drive failed and just restore
Sony: The restore disks may not work on just any hard drive, it has to
fitted by Sony

Has anyone heard of that before? I thought you could just buy a new hard drive and reinstall the factory software from the recovery disks.

GBX

I got a compaq laptop in the states. As per the documents with it, I had to burn my own recovery disks before I could progress with anything. Maybe see if theres something like that on the sony??

masterwriter

GBX wrote: »

I got a compaq laptop in the states. As per the documents with it, I had to burn my own recovery disks before I could progress with anything. Maybe see if theres something like that on the sony??

There is and recovery disks can be burnt. But I cannot understand that they will only work with Sony fitted hard drive. A couple years of ago my old laptop hard drive died and I just bought a new western digital drive and the recovery disks reinstalled on that. Thanks for reply

Sherifu

Seems strange to me, the reason [about the hard drive being replaced by them] could be something to do with the warranty?

masterwriter

rkm wrote: »

Seems strange to me, the reason [about the hard drive being replaced by them] could be something to do with the warranty?

No, he said it would be free if in warranty and I would have to pay if not. Wouldn't mind having to buy a hard drive if the warranty was out but the hassle of sending it back just to get a disk fitted...

Sherifu

Yes but maybe if you replace the hard drive yourself it could void the warranty, i.e. they insist on replacing the hard drive themselves. Just a thought.

masterwriter

rkm wrote: »

Yes but maybe if you replace the hard drive yourself it could void the warranty, i.e. they insist on replacing the hard drive themselves. Just a thought.

maybe but the part I could not understand was that the recovery disks may not work with a hard drive I would buy

GBX

might be just a "sales pitch" .. seems very weird ..

Sherifu

masterwriter wrote: »

maybe but the part I could not understand was that the recovery disks may not work with a hard drive I would buy

may not = covering their ass

TestTransmission

masterwriter wrote: »

I bought a Sony laptop recently. I contacted sony about the fact there were no recovery disks. Sony phoned me today. Here is some of the conversation:

Sony: There is a back up partition on the hard drive
Me: What if the hard drive fails?
Sony: If the hard drive fails the laptop will have to be sent back to Sony
to have a new hard drive fitted
Me: If I had recovery disks I could get a new hard drive as I did when
my old, not sony ,laptop hard drive failed and just restore
Sony: The restore disks may not work on just any hard drive, it has to
fitted by Sony

Has anyone heard of that before? I thought you could just buy a new hard drive and reinstall the factory software from the recovery disks.

Basically the way it works,
1.U burn ur recovery disks,this is handy if the partition becomes corrupt.
2.More than likely if u replace the hard drive yourself,when u try to run the recovery disks,it will not recognise the unit as being a Sony(95% chance)
3.If it fails out of warranty,u cant simply install a new hard drive and then ask them to install a os,they will want to install their own hard drive and charge u an extremely large amount of money for it and...
4.Its a sony...surely there's no chance of anything going wrong with it...(notice the sarcasm)

Karoma

masterwriter wrote: »

There is and recovery disks can be burnt. But I cannot understand that they will only work with Sony fitted hard drive. A couple years of ago my old laptop hard drive died and I just bought a new western digital drive and the recovery disks reinstalled on that. Thanks for reply

rkm wrote: »

may not = covering their ass

Mostly. Although, Sony applied some manufacturer lock-in (whether it was intentional, we can't be sure) with some of their laptops - the disc looked for a specific HDD installed. Otherwise, it's warranty issue - they don't like customers opening their laptop while it's in warranty for fear of damaging other components & so they can avoid supporting you on some issues while in warranty. Plus, they can milk more money out of you via repairs & recovery disc sales post-warranty (A few years ago they were selling recovery discs for something like €130 for certain models!)
There is also some confusion re: OEM / licensing for some of the software as it wouldn't be used on the original hardware/HDD - it probably doesn't still apply, but things were and are hazy in this area.

Recovery discs will most likely work with another HDD.

All in all, it's mostly about 'ass-covering'.

masterwriter

I wrote to HP:

I am considering buying a compaq presario. Plesse confirm
1 Will i get restore disks and windows disk?
2 will these work with a different hard drive if i upgrade hard drive in future?
3 can a new hard drive be fitted without returning to hp if needed at any time

HP said:

Dear Mr ***********
In response to your email, if you purhase an HP / Compaq computer it will come with recovery information stored on a separate partition of the hard disk. If you wish you can create your own restore disks from this information, as you will not be supplied with disks as standard.

If you upgrade the hard disk you should be able to use the restore disks to reinstall everything as the information is not binded to the hard disk. It primarily goes off the motherboard, graphics card etc installed in the machine. If you wish to install another hard disk you can do so, though we will not support it. We are unable to upgrade it for you, so if you want to do this and are unsure how I would recommend contacting a local computer retailer to see if they can do this for you.

I hope this information is of use to you. If you have any other queries, or need any other information, please do not hesitate to reply directly to this email, keeping all previous history.
Kind Regards,

AlmightyCushion

Karoma wrote: »

There is also some confusion re: OEM / licensing for some of the software as it wouldn't be used on the original hardware/HDD - it probably doesn't still apply, but things were and are hazy in this area.

OEM versions of windows are only tied to that motherboard. You could change the hard drive without breaking the licensing agreement.

I agree with everyone else here, it's most likely ass covering just to be on the safe side.

masterwriter

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

OEM versions of windows are only tied to that motherboard. You could change the hard drive without breaking the licensing agreement.

Hi AC Is OEM when MS allow Sony to repackage windows? See http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-oem.htm

AlmightyCushion

masterwriter wrote: »

Hi AC Is OEM when MS allow Sony to repackage windows? See http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-oem.htm

Yep. There are a couple of restrictions with oem versions. It's tied to the motherboard it is installed in first and microsoft don't support it. Support is provided from whoever the oem is, in this case sony.

masterwriter

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Yep. There are a couple of restrictions with oem versions. It's tied to the motherboard it is installed in first and microsoft don't support it. Support is provided from whoever the oem is, in this case sony.

OK, thank you

MarkR

Used to do support for sony, wasn't like that then (2+ years ago), and they did have computers where you could (should) create your own recovery cd / dvd.

masterwriter

"The recovery disks are specifically tied to the motherboard - they absolutely will not work with another make or model of VAIO.

They are also tied to the size of the hard drive. If the hard drive is replaced with one smaller than the original, they will work, because the utility has to compensate for the fact that a user may have varying partition sizes set up. If it is bigger, it may not, particularly if it is significantly bigger.

That being said, we would like to reiterate that we cannot and do not make any guarantee whatsoever regarding the compatibility of your VAIO with third-party components"

Thanks for the feedback everyone

Sherifu

So I wonder if you can get a bigger HDD and just partition a smaller section for the OS, sounds like it's possible.

masterwriter

Something I found

masterwriter

Interesting to read here that apparently single drivers/files can reinstalled from the restore partition but not from recovery disks. I can recall having to do a full recovery because of one corrupt file which could not be restored from the recovery disks, though it was not a Sony PC

Apparently you can buy them from a third party

masterwriter

I told Sony I paid for the PC and was not paying for the discs and said I woul be seeking lega advice.....

Sony sent me free recovery discs. it says on them they are "only fro distribution with a new PC " so I wonder why they do not distribute them with a new PC.

TestTransmission

money...........and its meant to be portable aswell,incase ur off somewhere and u need to reinstall a program and u dont have ur discs.
lots of manufacturers do it nowadays,nothing illegal about it as far as i know.
think u can buy a copy off them for 20euro anyway

masterwriter

jackncoke wrote: »

as far as i know.think u can buy a copy off them for 20euro anyway

I think they should be supplied with the pc

Capt'n Midnight

Once upon a time they send out PC's with windows 95 and the end user would have to make about 15 floppy disks

CD's are cheap - can't be more than a few cent at that volume so I can't see how saving all that money is worth the bad will it generates

masterwriter

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Once upon a time they send out PC's with windows 95 and the end user would have to make about 15 floppy disks

Strange they brought the restore disc idea in and then did away with it again. I got them in 2003 with a laptop

CD's are cheap - can't be more than a few cent at that volume so I can't see how saving all that money is worth the bad will it generates

Me neither, from a PR point of view they would be much better to give them free because of the good word of mouth advertising they would get. I saw a compaq desktop on a USA site recently with restore discs, I think they were charging 5 dollars extra

TheBza

I'm having trouble with my sony vaio pcg-71911m, im getting a black screen with read error when booting up, when trying the recovery disks they wont work, it gets stuck on the windows blue background screen with the mouse cursor after selecting what keyboard language i want to use, im guessing my hard drive is a gonner, would recovery disks not work if hard drive failed, may be a stupid question? Just wondering if so, did the OP change sony hard drive by himself and not through sony with no problems? Just dont want to fork out 60 euro on ebay for a new HD and it wont work for me, sorry for dragging up old posts, feel free to move mod's if post should be elsewhere, Cheers.

Capt'n Midnight

if you already have the recovery disks it shouldn't care which HDD you use

http://partedmagic.com/doku.php
this disk will allow you to run hard drive self tests
it also has utilities to backup the drive if still possible

TheBza

Thanks for the reply, il try that disk, make sure its defiantly the HD, just frustrating that i cant run the recovery disk properly.

TheBza

that disk isnt working for me, i got it to run etc. but it gets stuck at a certain point i cant remember the name exactly but its right after the point when its loading the files where it gives you the root password if you get me, if my hard drive is failed would this be the issue? If the windows recovery disks are not loading properly as well would this be cause from a failed hard drive? Cheers

edit: Creating /etc/fstab is where it gets stuck

Capt'n Midnight

TheBza wrote: »

edit: Creating /etc/fstab is where it gets stuck

sounds like a corrupt partedmagic CD

try again , iirc there is also a USB version

TheBza

Thanks for the help got it working booting via usb, wasnt able to save any files and had to format the hard drive, i was getting errors before this when testing it, but after got less, was saying read error that was unfixable on the hard drive, im going to try installing windows 7 again tomorrow and see how i get on, cheers again for help.

riclad

I GOT a new hp pc, sony laptop, vaio,
both have a menu, make recovery cds.
I got no cds, media of any kind with those pcs,laptop.
I dont think most companys provide windows install cds,any more,
companys may provide recovery cds ,for a small fee, ,if you can show laptop is under gaurantee,and give the windows,license key.

ITS possible to use gparted to copy the recovery partition of the original hardrive.