Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge

[Derrida]

How about 25 posts about how we don't need 25 posts about not needing 25 posts....

Tarrega, I'm interested....

Check my questions above.

Thanks.

[Joe Bleau]

How about 25 posts about how we don't need 25 posts about not needing 25 posts....

If it prevents 500 other Blow by Blow posts, then it's a good investment.

[crzytimes]

You you could put back in your OEM drive & use one of these: Top 13 Free Product Key Finder Programs: "If you're preparing to reinstall a program or an operating system (like a clean install of Windows), you will need to find your unique product key (CD key) or serial number."

Check: Corel Support Where Do I Find My Serial Number and contact them.

I'll def be looking into this tomorrow. Not sure I want to pop out my harddrive or just wait until I get my external enclosure...would it be possible to just boot into the external on thru the bios and do this? Sounds logical to me. I just really hate opening and closing and handling harddrives

I'm curious about turning my optical bay into another Harddrive spot...although I'mnot sure I"m keen on swapping in and out the optical drive everytime I want to watch a movie....suppose it just depends on how often I watch movies on my laptop, doesn't it?

[Tarrega]

Hi Derrida. I'm in online text chat. But the session has been closed. The second analyst told me to stick with the burning, and if it fails I should try the C: Drive Recovery procedure, then try making recovery disks again. That makes good sense to me and I will try it if this burning fails (which I'm pretty sure it will).

Still not real happy that I have to go through all this folderol, but Joe Bleau has at least helped me pass the time pleasantly. :-)

98% -- the suspense!

[count_schemula]

Not real happy, Sony.

Not so sure you can blame Sony alone on this one. It's an industry trend. A bad one, but a trend nonetheless. In the old days, you used to get actual Windows software on CD/DVD. Then manufacturers decided to save $1 and now you get recovery partitions, which also eats into YOUR hard drive space.

Anyhow, I'm glad I forked over the $149 for an OEM copy of Windows 7 Pro, even though I supposedly have legal Windows with my purchase.

Time is money, and frustration is even more money.

I also know I'm putting clean Windows with no bloat ware on my computer.

Stupid, and I'm not happy about it, but I am happy I went ahead and bit the bullet on it.

I'm out the money, but I just finished my second clean install this week and I had zero issues.

I had the machine set up for a live show last week, now I'm wiping to use as a personal computer and I'll rock this install for 12-18 months, or until Windows starts misbehaving and/or I junk it up.

[Tarrega]

I hear you. I really wanted Win 7 Pro with a clean install, but I didn't want to wait two weeks for delivery. So I broke down and bought this machine at the store.

I've been installing clean Windows since Win 3.11. I'm sure I'll do the same with this machine at some point, after I'm sure I want to keep it.

Grumpy Old Geek

[MelodyMaster]

Hi Derrida. I'm in online text chat. But the session has been closed. The second analyst told me to stick with the burning, and if it fails I should try the C: Drive Recovery procedure, then try making recovery disks again. That makes good sense to me and I will try it if this burning fails (which I'm pretty sure it will).

Still not real happy that I have to go through all this folderol, but Joe Bleau has at least helped me pass the time pleasantly. :-)

98% -- the suspense!

Everything about the slowness is screaming that the writer is in PIO mode, or not using the proper Intel driver. Nothing the Sony rep is saying would be on my list of to-tries.

[count_schemula]

I feel like we should be able to sue them for actual Windows software, or even pay an extra $9 for something and get the software in the mail if need be.

Recovery partitions are a low down dirty trick.

[Joe Bleau]

I'll def be looking into this tomorrow. Not sure I want to pop out my harddrive or just wait until I get my external enclosure...would it be possible to just boot into the external on thru the bios and do this? Sounds logical to me. I just really hate opening and closing and handling harddrives

I'm curious about turning my optical bay into another Harddrive spot...although I'mnot sure I"m keen on swapping in and out the optical drive everytime I want to watch a movie....suppose it just depends on how often I watch movies on my laptop, doesn't it?

Yes, it depends on your needs. For example, for Sony Vegas or Photoshop, it's better to have the scratch disk on a different drive than the OS. I don't need the optical drive often but a second HDD all the time.

Maybe just connecting the external & running the key finder utility would work even if not booting from it as the utility looks into the registry, that's a good question.

One thing I retain from the key finder utility article is to do it before a clean install. Especially when going from XP to Windows 7, for example.

I use Lavalys Everest and there is a neat panel where it lists almost all the product keys & you can export it as .txt or .xls:

[Tarrega]

Everything about the slowness is screaming that the writer is in PIO mode, or not using the proper Intel driver. Nothing the Sony rep is saying would be on my list of to-tries.

I'm looking in Device Manger under "DVD/CD-ROM drives". It says "Matsh*ta BD-MLT UJ240AS." Right-click, then Properties doesn't tell me anything about PIO or IDE. However, the status says "This device is working properly."

Well, the two DVDs finished burning -- successfully, it says. I'm reluctant to test them, but I suppose I should. Maybe tomorrow. Shouldn't take more than, oh, 25 posts or so to describe the epxerience. Be sure to tune in! :-)