Recovery and Win7 fulfilment DVD

[alstewa37]

I have a Vaio VGN-NW11S originally purchased with Vista with the voucher for upgrade to Win7 which was subsequently purchased.

I am retiring the laptop from its primary use and want to reload the laptop. Booting from the Win7 DVD (2) installs a base load of Windows 7 with none of the Vaio optimisations and additional software.

The only way I can see to get these options back is to recover back to Vista then rerun the upgrade as the Supplment DVD (1) will only run under Vista. How can I do a clean Win7 install but get the extra programs?

As an alternative can I refresh the recovery partition so that the next time it will install Win7 straight off?

[rich912 · Accepted solution]

Hi alstewa37,

You have purchased an OEM upgrade from Vista to Win 7, so you are correct in your assumption that the upgrade route using disk 1 is the only way to retain all pre-installed drivers, utilities and softeware from the pre-installed or re-installed OS.

You can download and install the original drivers and utilities but pre-installed software is not available for download.

The recovery partition cannot be 'refreshed' - this will always remain as 'As Delivered'.

An alternative would be to make a mirror image of the Win 7 OS using a utility such as Acronis True Image should you need to reinstall the upgraded Win 7 OS including all Sony software, drivers and utilities.

Rich

[FOVEON_X3F]

Hi Alstewa37

Would be better to buy a commecial win 7 software ...... and if you would not have problems extract the HDD from the computer and connect it as external drive to another pc or laptop. delete all partitions from it....  after format  reinstall it in your sony laptop. insert the W7 dvd and install it...... this is the unique mode for ypur laptop to fotget W Vista ........ because Sony put the info of the laptop in a hidden partition......

Now you have virgin HD and you caninstall w 7 without problems....... go to Sony downloads and keep the drivers......

p.s. I was not happy with sony Vaio....... I have already a contestation about the NVIDIA  video card that is recognized as defective but Sony would I pay 362 € to repair it :smileyalert:....... ( SONY VAIO VGN-FZ21M)

or 160 € to send it back to me not repaired ......... I, with sony I closed !!!!!  good aethetic  line of laptops but mediocre components and bad and expensive service !

Follow my instructions and win 7 shall run fine, without sony upgrade...... I tested it......  in the laptop that sony have as hostage......

If you can, buy IBM LENOVO as I done, the service is super !

You can upgrade, automatically all last drivers for the new  O.S also if your computer is 10 years old.....

Good luck

Carlo

Message was edited by: FOVEON_X3F

[alstewa37]

Much as I expected, although the original image includes a severe amount of junkware there are some useful parts as well. I have now followed through the recovery, prep (DVD1) and upgrade (DVD2). One anomaly was that DVD1 which cleans up some of the incompatabilities removed the wifi network drivers which was being used to get the installation updates yet left the AMD catalyst software which failed the preinstallation check.

I dislike having to install software in order to take an image of the system (bring back Ghost 6) so I will look at the options.