Need help for friends computer

Hey i am working on a friends computer at the moment, i dont exactly know how it got to the state its in but i need some help getting it going again. its a sony Viao running Vista and whenever i turn it on it comes up black screen saying install windows installation disc, but the dics that she made for it the first time like the reboot discs are gone. so i tried a copy of windows xp because i have a installation disc for that, but it comes up as problem. is there anything that i can do with out bringing it in to get fixed?

 

I ran into the exact same issue about 3 weeks ago. Your best bet is to borrow a Vista disk from someone you know or burn one yourself. More than likely the reason XP has problems is because the CD doesn't have drivers for the HDD controller.

 

alright thanks for the info but i still have a question. my father has a windows vista laptop and i was wondering if i could use his discs to reboot it back to factory settings? like is that going to effect the operating system or any of the drivers or is it all the same?

 

You won't be able to restore it to factory settings with a regular Vista install disk. If you have a recovery partition on your hard drive then it will be possible to boot from that and restore the computer to factory defaults. If you reinstall Vista there is a good likelihood that you will also need to download some of the drivers also.

 

What's the exact model of Vaio from the tag on the back of the case? Sometimes they have recovery partitions.