VGN-A217M DVD-RW DW-D56A FIRMWARE PROBLEM

[luk4ss]

Hi. The problem is that I've used the update from http://www.vaio-link.com/vu/vu21/vu21.asp?l=en to change my vaio's firmware. I followed all the instructions and this programme announced a sucessfully accomplished mission. So far so good, but when I rebooted my laptop and tried to burn a CD-R it stopped half way through and rejected the CD. Now when I try to read any other CD or DVD it makes strange sounds and nothing happens. I have also tried downgrading the firmware with this tool http://upload.cdfreaks.com/ftools/firmware.exe
and it didn't even change the version of firmware. Same thing happens, so I have no cd-drive..
Please help!

[BUMPHI]

I lost my live tv when i upgraded so i had recover the system you might need to do the same, did you get any recovery discs?

[luk4ss]

I'm afraid I've already tried to recover my system, using Windows restore.. but as a friend of mine told me, firmware is stored in the drive's flash memory, so any changes made on the system wouldn't affect it and this is, unfortunately, true.. So, even though I have these recovery discs I doubt if there is a chance of changing anything this way.
Thanks for your reply anyway.
Cheers mate,
still looking forward for the solution!!
Help!

[wheresmybeaver]

Hey bud sorry to hear about the trouble..

I just checked the Vaio-Link website, thats the first time I noticed the DVD update. I have an A217M as well, but I don't think I'll be installing this firmware update unless someone can provide a VERY good reason for it.

Did you follow all the guidelines in the Info to the letter? They seem pretty scary; Remove all startup items, hibernation, standby, tasks, network connections etc? Whats this about "user name has to be registered with half-size alphanumeric characters" etc?? And messing around with msconfig? In fairness I dont think many people would be comfortable using this upgrade software if there's any chance of a complete ****-up!

Hope you figure it all out. If you find out anything important, let us know.

David

[kee-lo_]

You'll have to speak to Sony support on Tuesday, as they'll need to send either a file to fix the firmware or change the hardware at their repair centre.

[luk4ss]

Scary indeed!
<profanity removed by moderator>, seems like I'm the first person to have done this, my god..
I did most of those things they ask for, I killed all the processes that run as start-up ones, there is no standby mode, no hibernation, my username is luk4ss so i guess this should do.. now when the comp starts it says it's in safe mode, so i guess this is caused by removing all these apps. I also tried to flash it back with some other versions of the firmware, no changes whatsoever, it stays on PFS2, so I'm totally screwed, I will ring them up on Tue and they should start praying now 😉
I hope they will have a fix, because I don't fancy sending my baby anywhere, plus I have to work on her 😄
I'm now gonna reboot and see if anything changes with another version of FW.
I think I may easily say that this was the worst Easter Sunday ever!
Thanks for your support guyz!
If anything changes I will let you know immediately!

luk4ss

[kee-lo_]

Good luck with it.

One final thing you might want to try is doing the update again.

[wheresmybeaver]

It shouldnt be starting in safe mode either though...

Just a thought; I'm not sure if Windows does it automatically or what, but did you go back to msconfig after the firmware upgrade (via Run in the Start menu) and change from Selective Startup back to Normal Startup? I would PRESUME that the firmware upgrade software would do this automatically...

Anyway, a firmware upgrade shouldn't be as difficult to successfully implement as rocket science.. This is Sony after all!

Good luck

[luk4ss]

Ok, I give up, did this upgrade again and PFS2 doesn't want to disappear, I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but using this firmware.exe (http://upload.cdfreaks.com/ftools/firmware.exe) tool is incredibly easy and it does say at the end of the operation: 'DONE!', so I suppose something must be wrong about this PFS2 FW. We'll see on Tuesday.

Safe mode wasn't running because I set it, but because I disabled so many things, presumably system wouldn't be allowed into normal mode because of this, again, to be honest I have no idea why this happened.
And upgrade soft does switch the system to normal mode after modifications have been done.
BTW, do I have to disable everything, everytime I try to up- or downgrade FW? Or was this only the case with this stupid Sony tool?
Anyway, doing the upgrade from PFS2 to PFS2, in other words trying to do it again, is impossible, as Sony disabled this option in their upgrade tool, unfortunately..
Thanks again, I'm going for a drink now, I've had enough now, no more FW upgrades on this computer ever!

luk4ss

[kee-lo_]

Think I am going to retire to the living room too.