RC-202 Fresh XP Install Issues

[MrsHarris]

Hey all,

I've 'accidenatally' wiped both HDD on my Vaio RC202 (8including the hidden restore partition) and am now trying to do a fresh XP Media install. Sadly I don't think XP has the drivers for the RAID controller included... I've heard I can make a floppy with these drivers on which I can use during the install. Could anyone please help me identify which drivers I need?

Oh, I've also lost the restore discs I made... yes I know I'm a plum 😞

[Blencogo]

That's a bit of a silly thing to do!

You can get the RAID drivers from the Preinstalled Drivers Download for your Vaio. Expand the download into a directory C:\Drivers and copy all the files in C:\Drivers\RAID to a floppy disc. Files start with file name iastor.* but copy the lot including readme files.

Get the Preinstalled Drivers and Preinstalled Utilities from - Sony Vaio-Link Downloads

Or You can download just the RAID Driver from SONY DOWNLOADS RC US

Your original installation will have included the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software for configuring RAID. I'm not sure if you actually need it - it may just be a 'nice to have'. If you need it you can download it from INTEL DOWNLOAD CENTRE - I see they do a downloadable floppy disc configuration utility.

Good Luck!!

[MrsHarris]

Wow thanks for the quick reply... I'll give this all a go and let you know how I fare.

Ta again,
Mrs H

[MrsHarris]

Just a quick update... I've got the floppy disc made with just the RAID drivers and I managed to get hold of a parallel port floppy drive too. Sadly the floppy drive was not recognised during install either 😞

I'm gonna see if I can either create a slipstream disc (with Nlite I think) or see if I can get hold of a usb floppy drive (I saw that the USB drivers were loaded during the bit of install that did happen) tomorrow and then try these possibe solutions out.

[Blencogo]

It has to be a USB connected floppy drive.

It is always useful to have one of these if you have a Sony computer because this is the ONLY external device you can boot from.

£13.72 from PCWorld!! - won't break the bank.

[MrsHarris]

Right... bought myself a floppy drive and now have XP installed. Thanks again for your help.

It's still got no internet connection, crap display settings etc... so I'm off to download some more drivers which I hope will sort this out. Once that's done I'll see if I can get the Media bits and bobs working again.

[MrsHarris]

Oh dear... I'm stuck again unfortunately 😞
I've got to a point where I have an install of XP (though during the install it asked for an SP2 disc... the only one I have has a single .exe file on and the Install didn't like it).

I still have no network connection sadly... the Network adapter for the Intel PRO/1000 PM says it's working correctly but cannot acquire an IP (I also don't see any listings in the network connections page unless I start the wondows firewall service). The port has a static green light showing, and ipconfig gives me the following...

Dhcp Enabled. . . . Yes
Autoconfig Enabled .Yes
IP Address . . .  0.0.0.0
Subnet Mask . . . 0.0.0.0
Default Gateway . 
DHCP Server . . . 0.0.0.0

One thing that I think it may be is this... I have - listed in the device manager - a PCI device which has a question mark for an icon and has no driver... could this be the ethernet controller? If so does anyone know how I can please set it so that it works?

Thanks again for all the help so far!

[rich912]

Hi MrsHarris,

In Device Manager, under Network Adaptors, do you have the Intel Pro/100 VE Network Connection (or similar) listed? If not then your assumption is possibly correct.

In which case download the pre-installed drivers from Vaio-Link and extract the folder to a know location. Then, in Device manager, right click the unknown device and select ‘Update Driver’ and point the wizard in the direction of the extracted folder.

Also you can download SP2 via the Microsoft web site

[MrsHarris]

Thanks for the post and ideas Rich.

I do have a Intel(R) PRO/1000 PM Network Connection entry in the Network Adapters section so I'm not sure that's it. I've also downloaded the Drivers from the Vaio link and pointed to this folder when trying to update the driver for the unknown PCI device... unfortunately no progress.

I have downloaded the SP2 from MS but as I said this is a single .exe file and isn't any good during the install process

I'm slowly running out of possible solutions... and sanity

[rich912]

Can you provide a few more details on your network connection?

1 Are you using broadband or dialup (modem).
2 If broadband are you connected via Wireless (via Router), Ethernet (via Router) or USB.
3 Any other information that you think is relevant.

I have downloaded the SP2 from MS but as I said this is a single .exe file and isn't any good during the install process

I am a tad confused here as, if you have successfully installed XP (SP1), the MS SP2 download will upgrade your system to SP2 - just double click the .exe file...