Reinstalling OS on wiped HD on Vaio?

Hi all, I am a newbie to this site. Sony support is useless. On a Vaio VGN-AR61M/PCG-8112M that HAD Vista home installed. HD was wiped(will skip horror story:cry). Now at bootup i get error msg-no OS found, on a black screen. With Hirens Boot CD I can open miniXP, and several recovery progs say Boot sector(partition?)intact. Cannot run Linux Mandrake Move bootable cd OS.
Don't really want Vista but i understand this unit wont support XP without incredible BS. Can I install Windows 2000, or any other OS easily. Or even reinstall Vista(no copy in hand). Then i can use Virtual pc to run XP. Please provide a link or detailed instructions. Thanks!

 

Welcome to MG
You should be able to run xp on your system. The only problem you may have is locating the correct drivers for it. Once you get it up and running with xp post in the driver section and one of the experts should be able to assist you.

 

Thanks, but...The above info is accurate. Sony says my unit wont support XP. Something to do with RAID & S-ATA drivers. I found a workaround on google for a similar unit(?) AR31M but it is way difficult, 40+ steps of modifying the XP install files on a seperate pc, burning a new iso and then MAYBE it can be read by the Vaio. After that lots of driver searches that other people report never seem to replace all functions.