Problem reinstalling vista on vaio

Hello all,

I searched the forum but couldn't really find an answer for my problem.
I bought a new HDD for my vaio (200gig instead of 120gig) and wanted to reinstall vista on this new disk. When i tried it the installation from the dvd goes normal but when te laptop makes his first restart he stops after the vaio screen. It seems to me that the HDD does not boot as the light only blinks 2 3 times and then the whole system halts. I tried to reinstal with DVD on the old HDD and now i have the same problem with that one. So i know that it's not a HDD problem, but i don't know why the laptop doesn't want to startup again. Can anybody help me please, I don't want to get stuck with a €1300 paper-weight

 

First thing to verify is any jumper settings on the hard disk.

If correct, does the machines bios correctly identify the hard disk?

 

Hi and thanks for replying, i started thinking nobody had an idea...

I have no jumpers on any hard drive (not the 120 nor the 200), but I doubt that could be the problem, since I had the preinstalled-vista on the vaio before, and it booted normally. And after reformating it and installing the ultimate version on it it doesn't boot anymore.

And yes I checked in the bios it properly sees the hard drive when I put it in.

I also tried to boot wihtout HDD (which is impossible I know) and then I get the error message 'could not find operating system'. So for some reason the HDD is seen, he even sees part of an operating system, if not i would get the same error or the ntldr error, but he does not want to complete installation.

The only thing I can think off is that it is a tatoo problem, even though it makes no sence, I should still be able to reinstal a clean vista home premium with my disk and the original license key from the bottom.

 

I don't have Vista so I'm winging it here.
CAVEAT: The commands listed may be different in Vista. Typing HELP at the command prompt should get you into HELP where you can see what commands are available.

If it's anything like XP;

Boot the machine with your Vista DVD.

If/when you're told to "Press any key to boot from DVD", hit the Space bar.

At the 'Welcome to Setup' screen, press r for Repair.

When the machine is done loading, type in;

Chkdsk /f

When it's fininshed, try booting normally.

If it still won't boot, repeat the above, this time type in;

Fixmbr

 

im doing it right now but i now noticed somthing else. when i choose repair he lets me choose out of 4 windows vista, all of them on the E: drive. I dont know if this has to do with my problem, but this doesnt seem right to me...

 

chkdsk didnt solve the problem everything seem ok, exept that he could not copy the log file error 50

and the other command is not recognised nor the help command.

 

It doesnt seem right to me either. Or, is the E drive the DVD?

And I would think the first hard drive (O/S partition) on the primary hard disk would be C.

As I stated, I don't know about Vista, so I hesitate to advise further.

I would (reasonably) think;

If you have the complete install on DVD, and not on a "hidden" partition, then can you delete all partitions and start from scratch? Is such an option available?

You may want to wait for others who know and have experience with Vista installations/factory recoveries to advise.

 

no sorry i should have told the whole story

I made the C: a reco partition D: for documents and E: the windows partition, normally this doesnt form a problem so i doubt that it would be a problem now, and yes i know its strange, but i'm used to it now...

But again it seems like i have four vista installations on 1 partition. Which doesnt seem normal to me.

And dont worry, you are giving me good advice so far, and its not like i need the vaio right now, i see it more like a challenge to resolve the problem myself (or with a litlle help from others) then to ask sony for help.

maybe the best thing right now is to reformat with no partitions just one big disk, and reinstal from scratch (again ) then trying then cmd's you gave me again.

Is there an absolute best format program or are they all the same?

Thanks again

 

Yes, that's what I meant;

Once you delete them, you should go directly into the CREATE PARTITION mode. Once you create (and choose the size), you should be prompted to format it/them.

 

So still no luck

I tried the chkdsk no problems, but no boot either. Next I tried the bootrec/fixboot, the system booted, but then gave me an error saying that a setp is missing or changed loccation and that I had to run chkdsk. I tried it but windows repair said there was no installed vista on the hard disk...

I started over reinstalling vista, running chkdk (no problems) running boot fix (so far al okay) and then running chkdsk again (now he said there was a problem with the disk and that i had to run chkdsk/f to fix the problems. I did this rebooted the thing but no luck. Still the same nice black screen...

I also tried the fixmbr earlier but still no booting..

Does anybody has an idea please because this pc is slowly starting to go on my nerves...