VGN-CR31S - error message 305:69 on restoring VISTA OS from restore disks

[Pigzster]

Help!! - less than 24 hours from giving my daughter this Vaio as a Christmas present, I find myself trying to restore the Vista OS and Vaio enhancements and all computer settings from the disks I generated this morning when setting the machine up because she managed to pick up a virus and then decided to remove the Norton a/v through programs add/removal.

I have now tried several times (completely wiping the HD) to do this and at 18% progress, I continually receive an error message ceasing the installation. The error 305:69 is generated after much DVD action, a period of two minutes of inactivity and then followed on the OK click with a further message of error 319.

Anyone that could help me with this would make a very sad girl happy and Daddy pleased - as well as feeling that Vaios aren't really that bad! (tough call being a Mac user and as Vaio support is shut!)

Help please!!!!.......

[Blencogo]

Hi Pigzster and welcome to Club Vaio.

There is obviously a problem with the Recovery Disc Set and you can take that up with Sony after the holidays.

But in the meantime, your daughter's Vaio has a Hard Disc Recovery system where you can Recover the Vaio without discs by using the hard drive instead.

Download the Recovery and Troubleshooting Guide for this model from here: -

ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/Manuals/RecoTS/2008Q1_RT_EN.pdf

and look at Page 37 if you can still open Vista or Page 39 if you can't. I suspect you will need Page 39 if you have formatted the C:\ drive - this involves tapping F10 during the boot process which will start the Recovery Centre direct from the hard disc.

I hope you have not formatted the entire hard disc using fdisk!!!!

Good Luck!!

Let us know how you get on.

[Pigzster]

Much appreciated - 2am has passed and I was hoping to fix it before the morning!

Guess I'll keep going!...

Thanks again....

[Pigzster]

Thanks for your help previously, however, gone through the process of a restart and pressing F10 and worked through to selecting the option to restore C: drive, however, it wont let me past this with the message "Cannot use this recovery disc for this computer. Confirm the model number" Click Ok and then "error: CompareSnyIniToPacIni, Error: 92" click OK and it drops me back to the Vaio recovery centre.

Oh dear.....! I guess its time for another glass of Pinot!

Kind regards

[Blencogo]

All I can suggest is that you reset the BIOS defaults and try again.

To reset BIOS tap F2 during boot.
You will get the PhoenixBIOS Setup Utility window.
Press F9 to get default values and then press ENTER to confirm.
Press F10 to save changes and exit and then press ENTER to confirm.
You have restored the default values and your VAIO will now restart.

Now try F10.

If this fails, there must be a mismatch between the model coding within the BIOS and the software version.

I believe Sony Vaio-Link Support are only closed on Christmas Day and New Years Day although they do close at 4pm on some days. This may be 3pm as Vaio-Link are EU based. They should be open Boxing-Day morning.

http://support.vaio.sony.co.uk/contacts/contacts.asp?site=voe_en_GB_cons

[Pigzster]

Thanks v.much for your help on this. It looks like the partition has also become corrupt and thus the whole things is not possible to recover with what I have.

I have now spoken to support, and they are sending out new recovery disks for me - arrival in the New Year

In the meantime, I thought, as I have an oem copy of win XP SP3, I might install this - at least my daughter can use the machine while awaiting the arrival of the new disks.

This has gone well to the stage where I can boot up into XP etc. however, now for the drivers to gain connectivity etc. etc.

This is proving more difficult than I imagined as this machine was obviously designed to run Vista. Any ideas where I can get the XP drivers and/or if they exist. I found a section in the Vaio support site regarding downgradng to XP and advising that they exist and that installation of XP does not invalidate the warranty of the machine, however, I cant get to them.

Once again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Merry Christmas by the way!

[Blencogo]

Sadly, Sony Europe do not support XP on your model. They only support XP on Vaio models running Vista Business. Unfortunately none of the CR-Series is sold with Vista Business installed - so no XP Support for the CR-Series.

You may like to have a look here: -

http://www.sony-asia.com/support/download/240810

You may find a few functions do not work with XP - things like the Fn keys for Volume and Screen Brightness etc.

Happy New Year (we hope!!)

[Pigzster]

Fantastic, and thanks so much - greatly appreciate all your help.

Happy New Year!

Kind regards