Vaio W - F10 fails to load recovery center

[universaltonton]

Hi everyone

I just can't get the recovery center to work at boot time. When the VAIO logo is displayed, I press the F10 button but nothing never happens. I tried to press it several times a second or leave it pressed for 10 seconds, but nothing works. I used a disk manager to check if the recovery partition was still there and it is.

Did I miss something ?

Thanks

[shadeyB]

use F12 to enter boot set up and if using recovery CD , insert disc then highlight dvd/cd .. press enter and this should take u there

[universaltonton]

F12 is for network boot.
Plus, I don't have any recovery dvd, that's my problem. I want to boot on the recovery partition.

Thanks anyway

[Blencogo]

The PCV-W series was manufactured before F10 recovery started and was not supplied with a Recovery Partition on the hard disc - it was supplied with a disc for recovery. There is no F10 Recovery Centre installed.

A VAIO Recovery and Documentation Disc was supplied with the Vaio when new. Have a look at the Software Guide for the W-Series here: -

ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/Manuals/Desktops/W2/W2_S_EN.pdf

If you cannot find the original disc, it may be worth contacting Sony to see if they still have some discs available for sale (about £35).

[universaltonton]

I think there is a confusion here. My model is "VPC" and not "PVC", the guide you give is I think for a desktop vaio.
The guide for the VPC does stateI have to use F10 : ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/Manuals/RecoTS/2009Q2_TRG_EN.pdf

Thanks

[Thalamus.]

Hi universaltonton,

welcome to Club VAIO..

Are you referring to the VPC - W11S1E

If so you can check if the recovery partiton is still present by doing the following..

Click Start then click Control panel.

In Control Panel click on Performance and Maintenance, then click on Administrative Tools and finally click on Computer Management..

A new window should open click on Disk Management and maximise the window .

Have you installed or un-installed anything on your Vaio.?

[universaltonton]

Hi thalamus, thanks for your reply.

I already checked if the recovery partition is still present and it is... I used both the Windows disk management tool as you suggest and acronis disk director. The partition type is "12" (which I think means it's a hidden recovery partition) and it's marked as active (eg the computer boots on that partition).

I installed Vista and so formatted the partition (leaving the recovery partition intact). By that time I thought I would be able to download the recovery utility for windows but apparently Sony doesn't offer that possibility. So here I am : I have a working Vista installation but I can't switch back to XP...

Thanks for your time

[Thalamus.]

Hi universaltonton,

the recovery partition should be an hidden EISA configuration and the C drive is normally shown as primary active..

Can you provide a screen print of the disk management window please.?

[universaltonton]

Sorry for the long delay...

Here is a couple of screenshots (I switched back to XP since my last post)


acronis disk director : http://files.me.com/john.walter/bpljic
windows standard tool : http://files.me.com/john.walter/v9r57j

[universaltonton]

I just saw the recovery partition was marked as active so I set the C drive active instead with no luck, still no recevory center when pressing F10 at boot time.

Isn't there any way to download the vaio recovery center for windows ?? It's wierd it's not available from the vaio download site.