Sony Vaio PCG-SR1K Notebook

[alan norman]

I am trying to help a friend resolve a problem with a Sony Vaio PCG-SR1K Notebook. I am pretty sure that the Hard Drive is faulty. The notebook came with Windows 2000 Professional pre-installed. I have reinstalled Windows using the Sony supplied recovery disks and during installation it suggests a check of the drive. During the check bad clusters are discovered. When it finds the bad clusters the drive makes a noisy clicking sound. The PC then operates OK for a few reboots but eventually Windows fails to load.

The Notebook uses an IBM Travelstar 12GN DARA-209000 9GB drive.

Replacing the drive with a new unit in the UK is probably not an option as it is a discontinued drive.

The 12GN was made by IBM in 6GB, 9GB and 12GB sizes.

I have looked on Ebay UK and used 12GB versions often comes up for auction.

My questions are:-

1. Whilst the 12GB version will physically fit in the Vaio am I likely to have any problems getting it recognised by the PC BIOS. I cannot find any reference to PCG-SR1K on the Sony website but I think it was only supplied with the 9GB drive.

2. Will I be able to use the Sony Windows 2000 Professional recovery disks to reinstall the O/S or will they only work on a 9GB drive.

3. Will the recovery disks work with a replacement 9GB drive or are they linked in some way to the original drive..

Thanks

Alan

[alex zorrilla]

Alan,

I did a bit of poking around and came upon the site http://www.vaio-link.com . It looks like this is the real site for Sony VAIO support.

Once in there, I found the following pages:

http://www.vaio-link.com/common/umbrella.asp?S=4026
http://www.vaio-link.com/common/recovery.asp?L=uk&H=yes&ID=141
http://www.vaio-link.com/UK/KB/2000_0/2743.html

To summarize what I found out:
There is no mention anywhere about the hard drive for this model. I would guess that it does not matter what hard drive you use. My guess that this BIOS would easily take any drive up to 30 GB, and possibly more.
I found a post somehere in http://pub173.ezboard.com/funofficialsonyfrm8 (I cannot find where now) in which someone was asking about replacing the hard drive. The person who answered suggested that the poster use a newer, larger 5400 rpm drive in its place. This also makes me believe that the hard drive does not matter.
The recovery CD has its own partitioning utility.
The SR1K recovery utility has a bug which forces you to recover to a FAT32 partition. If you want an NTFS partition, you must first recover to a FAT32 partition and then convert it in Windows 2000 to NTFS.
If you have a third-party CD-ROM drive in the computer, you may or may not have difficulty running the recovery utility from the CD. This seems to be because the recovery utility needs the proper DOS CD-ROM drivers. Since this computer does not have a built-in floppy drive (I think), this could pose a problem. My guess is someone who can burn a bootable CD-ROM could probably get around this problem, though.
The recovery utility is probably tied somehow to the system BIOS. This is probably how the recovery utility knows that it belongs to the system.
I have also seen suggestions on the VAIO-Link website to set the system BIOS to its defaults before starting.
If there are any passwords set in the BIOS, I would probably remove those before starting. I do not know if this makes any difference with Sony laptops, but I know that some IBM laptops store some of the password information on the hard drive as a security measure. It couldn't hurt, though.
Whew. That's about all I can think of for now. No guarantees, though. ;)

--Alex

[alan norman]

Hi Alex

Thanks for the all the links.

The notebook has a dedicated (external) CDRW with a switch for normal use and a setting for recovery. In the recovery position the notebook boots from the CDRW.

I need to find out if my friend has a floppy drive for it. I have found an IBM drive fitness test program which also allows a low level format. However it needs to run from a bootable floppy.

Once again thanks.

Bye

Alan

[alex zorrilla]

Hi, Alan.

One other thing I forgot to mention is that after recovering Windows 2000, the modem might not work because it is using the wrong driver. The fix is basically to uninstall the driver and then point it to some Sony-supplied driver somewhere. This is mentioned somewhere on the VAIO-Link website.

If you have a CD-RW on your computer, you may be able to create a bootable CD from a bootable floppy for the IBM drive fitness test.

--Alex

[alan norman]

Hi Alex

I do have a CDRW in my desktop PC. After making the bootable floppy using the drive fitness test program from the IBM site, is it just a matter of burning all the files to a CD or is there another process required.

Alan

[alex zorrilla]

There is another process required in order to make a bootable CD with the correct format (which I believe is called "El Torito", but I do not remembr for sure). Nero (the CD burning program with which I am most familiar) has a wizard for making a bootable CD from a bootable floppy. I would assume that other programs have a similar feature.

[alan norman]

Hi Alex

Thanks for the information.

I use Easy CD Creator and there appears to be an option to make a bootable CD. I will read up on it and let you know what happens.

Alan

[alan norman]

Hi Alex

Success. I made an IBM Drive Fitness Test bootable floppy disk and then burnt a bootable CD using Easy Cd Creator 4 and included the contents of the floppy
disk.

With the Sony Vaio I had to use the "recovery" switch on the underneath of the Sony External CDRW to boot into the IBM Drive Fitness Test program. Not suprisingly, the hard drive failed the fitness test due to "corrupted sectors found. Error Code 0X70 Corrupted Sector. A general hard disk problem was detected. You can run the Erase Disk utility. If a subsequent test fails again, the drive is defective and should be replaced".

I then did a low level format of the drive (using the Erase Disk utility) which produced the error code 0X75 (Defective Hard Drive Component).

At least now I can confidently tell my friend that a new drive is required.

Thanks again for your help.

Alan

[Mike East]

Hi Alan

Did you use a larger disk? I'm in the UK and I wanted to use a bigger HDD. I've run out of space on the standard 9Gb. I was worried that the BIOS wont handle putting in a larger disk. I have W2K standard edition and so wont be using the recovery disks.

Thanks

Mike

[alan norman]

Hi Mike

I am still looking for a suitable hard drive. It is pretty much impossible to get hold of a 9 GB drive in the UK.

IBM made a 12 GB version of the drive although I am having problems getting one of those as well.

It may well be that a larger drive would work but there is very little about the SR1K on the internet and as you know, the Vaio is owned by my friend.

If you manage to upgrade your 9 GB drive and want to find a new home for your 9GB drive, please let me know.

Alan

[alan norman]

Hi Mike

Did you succeed in upgrading your Vaio Hard Drive ?

I am still looking for a suitable replacement drive.

Alan

[alan norman]

I just installed an IBM 20 GB Travelstar 30GN IC25N020ATDA04 in the Sony Vaio PCG - SR1K. Following installation, the drive was immediately recognised by the system BIOS.

I have started a page on my site for the Vaio to go along with my M571 and MSI pages.

Alan

[alex zorrilla]

Good! Thanks for the update. I hope those extra 8 GB come in handy. :)

--Alex

[alan norman]

I forgot to say that the installation of Windows 2000 Professional using the Sony recovery disks went like a dream. Even the modem was recognised correctly.

Using recovery disks is a lot easier than a normal Windows installation.

Alan

[tonge]

Does anyone know how I can get hold of recovery disks for this machine (suppliers don't have UK version available - tried everyone) - or tell me a way to load the drivers for the optical drive without a floppy drive?

I have a pcg sr1k with a formatted c: drive and have no way of reinstalling the operating system. I have managed to get a flash drive to work with Dos drivers on the USB port - but don't know how I can use it to load the optical drive drivers to load on boot up...

Thanks

[Grim]

Are you saying that your system need "driver" for your CDROM drive to work :confused:. Becuase I doubt that, though it seems as if though that's what you're saying.
Or is it that you simply want to re-install your operating system, whether from floppy or CD?

If it is that you need a CDROM driver..then you'd have to give the model od the CDROM drive

[tonge]

Are you saying that your system need "driver" for your CDROM drive to work . Becuase I doubt that, though it seems as if though that's what you're saying.
Or is it that you simply want to re-install your operating system, whether from floppy or CD?

I don't have a floppy drive - just the PCMIA CD drive which will boot from Norton's emergency disk and 'Dave's boot disk' but not from any other (including a 98 boot disk CD version).

I managed to copy win98 onto the C: drive and ran it but it hangs - I 'm assuming because it expects the installation is on the CDRom drive but guess it doesn't have the drivers. I do have the drivers but don't know how I can get the system to intall them at boot.

If it is that you need a CDROM driver..then you'd have to give the model od the CDROM drive.

The CD Rom drive is a PCGA-CD51/A

I've since sucessfully loaded Linux Debian onto the machine to get it going - at least I've learnt a lot about Linux!!

Regards

[Grim]

OK, I see.
So its not the CDrom drivers that you want, but the only thing that will boot with your kind of drive, the "emergency disks". Am I correct?
Also, If you need the CDROM drivers to load at boot, then how is it that you installed Debian?.
Debian I hear is great. :) BTW, how did you get that installed! was it from the same CDROM drive :confused:.
I'm trying to understand you completly here :)

[tonge]

OK, I see.
So its not the CDrom drivers that you want, but the only thing that will boot with your kind of drive, the "emergency disks". Am I correct?

That's correct - I tried every type of win 98/XP boot disk I could but the CDrom drive couldn't see it - only the emergency disks. I used Dave's emergency boot disk to get the USB drive working which was how I managed to load win 98 onto the C: drive - but when I ran setup, although it started to load it just hung.

Also, If you need the CDROM drivers to load at boot, then how is it that you installed Debian?.
I had an iso of Debian so I tried it and the CDrom could see it and install it
Debian I hear is great. BTW, how did you get that installed! was it from the same CDROM drive .
I'm trying to understand you completly here

[fredm41l]

search for the drivers on driver guide and add them to to a windows 98 bootdisk

http://www.cdrom-drivers.com/drivers/34/34124.htm

add the drivers to the basic windows 98 bootdisk at

www.bootdisk.com

Boot with that disk and then start winXP setup from that