Share your experience!
hi - sorry if this has been covered, i'm new to this forum, there's no search tool (!!!), and i've looked thru' A LOT of thread topics without finding anything relevant...
anyway - got home tonight to my pcg-grv616g, which suddenly won't boot - i get sony logo, then os not found. tried the recovery disk to see if i could get into safe mode and at least back-up my data before taking any further steps (as is traditional in these situations, my data is NOT currently backed-up...), but it wouldn't work - hard disk not found.
HELP!
please tell me my hard drive hasn't just died - warranty ran out last month (how do they do that? that timing's uncanny.), i doubt i can afford sony repair, and i NEED that data (and a working notebook...).
like i said, please HELP!
many thanks,
j
Sounds like your hard drive is on the way out.
hmmm...
it's suddenly started working again now, though something doesn't sound 100% - hard drive? fan?
seems a bit early for a piece of kit i'd assumed was fairly reliable (coming from a reputable manufacturer, etc.) and was going to last me a few years to start coming apart. it gets daily, fairly intensive use, but still... it's less than 18 months old!
what d'you reckon - would you look at buying a new hard drive? any tips on how to go about it relatively cheaply? there's no way i can afford a new notebook...
also, is this kind of lifespan common among VAIO components, and can i expect other stuff to wipe out soon? 😞
cheers,
j
Well this is a bit of a long shot, but my hard drive was going a bit batty so I used my last resource tactic and to my surprise it worked. Turned out it was just a few important data sectors had gone bad, preventing start up half the time. Run XP's scandisk utility (Right click on your C:\ drive and click properties. Choose the Tools tab from the top and then click 'Check Now') Make sure both recovery options are ticked. And then do a scan, you will probably have to restart. It's a bit of a sellotape job but you never know. Worked for me.
If that fails your yellow pages should have some good repairers, get some quotes.
I had exactly the same problem a few months ago and sent my laptop to Sony. They said that there was nothing wrong but renewed the hard disk anyway. Guess what? I have exactly the same problem again and will contact Sony Customer Support
Frank
Twice in one row is bad bad luck. I wasn't very amused at my hard drive problems, I've only had it a few months.
Speaking of which, is there a limit to how many bad sectors there can be on a hard drive before you get a replacement? I mean, like the number of dodgy pixels in an LCD before you get a replacement?
Don't think it works like that Tyger...
Speaking of which, is there a limit to how many bad sectors there can be on a hard drive before you get a replacement? I mean, like the number of dodgy pixels in an LCD before you get a replacement?
Woah thanks for the info James, very handy post.