I need a little computer help

[Dave W]

Unfortunately my 3 1/2 year old desktop is toast, it needs a new motherboard and the parts and labor will be as much as buying a new one. Only problem with that (besides the expense) is that I still need XP for a few important things.

I'd like to get my old 2001 Sony Vaio running again but I screwed it up a few months ago. I was going to lend it to neighbors after their computer pooped out. I used a shred program to delete personal financial info and it managed to delete something in the OS (XP Home) which was on the same partition. Now, a regular boot says it can't load the OS. Boot from the Sony Recovery Disk starts the process but then gives a "disk access:sense operation failed" message. Trying to get into Safe Mode gets an error code that something in the BIOS can't be loaded.

If I can get a regular XP Home installation disk instead of the Sony proprietary disks, would that possibly help? If not, does anyone have any other suggestions? I'm trying to avoid an expensive repair on an outdated computer.

Thanks for any advice (other than telling me to get a Mac).

[exiledarchangel]

Do you have any files on that Vaio you want to keep? If yes, it gets kinda more complicated. If no, I would try to erase the entire hard drive. There is a free utility I use, its called gparted and you can download it from here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted-live-stable/

Go to 0.4.8-6 folder, and get the iso file. Then you will need to burn this file to a cd as an ISO image.
Then put that cd in the Vaio and boot from it, after some enters you will be in a simple partition manager where you can erase completely your hard disk.

Then try again to install winblows from your Sony Vaio recovery disk.

[the mojo hobo]

If I can get a regular XP Home installation disk instead of the Sony proprietary disks, would that possibly help?

Yes, it would. With a regular disk you can boot to the recovery console and run chkdsk to check your disk for errors, then you can do a repair install to fix your Windows installation. A repair install will keep all your files, documents and programs intact. (Unless you use Norton antivirus, that will have to be removed and re-installed) If you need a disk, I can send you one. If you need step by step, PM me.

[Dave W]

Do you have any files on that Vaio you want to keep? If yes, it gets kinda more complicated. If no, I would try to erase the entire hard drive. There is a free utility I use, its called gparted and you can download it from here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted-live-stable/

Go to 0.4.8-6 folder, and get the iso file. Then you will need to burn this file to a cd as an ISO image.
Then put that cd in the Vaio and boot from it, after some enters you will be in a simple partition manager where you can erase completely your hard disk.

Then try again to install winblows from your Sony Vaio recovery disk.

Thanks, I don't think this would work though. The Sony recovery disk gets through the re-partition quickly, then starts on reformatting the C drive, that's when it gets hung up.

I.e. using this utility would erase everything but I don't think the Sony disk would be able to go any further.

[Dave W]

Yes, it would. With a regular disk you can boot to the recovery console and run chkdsk to check your disk for errors, then you can do a repair install to fix your Windows installation. A repair install will keep all your files, documents and programs intact. (Unless you use Norton antivirus, that will have to be removed and re-installed) If you need a disk, I can send you one. If you need step by step, PM me.

I don't need to keep any files or programs, I have installation CDs for most programs and .exe files for the rest, and all the other files were either backed up or moved long ago. I just need to be able to successfully reinstall XP so I can have a place to use my photo scanner, audio editing program and some other old versions of programs that aren't Vista or 7 compatible.

Thanks for the offer, check your PM.