topic Re: HELP PCV-V1 in PCs & Accessories

HELP PCV-V1

Akanksha — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 08:52:29 GMT

My dinosaur of a computer has finally thrown a strop and stopped working all together.

It does it's POST, does Plug and Play initialisation, then detects hard-drives etc and then doesn't do anything after that. It just stays still.
Although this issue had been happening over the last month after a couple of power on/offs, eventually it would come on . Except that on Wednesday I renewed my Norton Subscription and it updated the system and asked for a restart, after which it has stopped working altogether.

I have already taken a backup so I know I need to reformat my hard drive, but the trouble being that the on-system hard-drive (Matshita -810) stopped working a year ago. And although I had turned into Sony for repair, who apparently replaced it. It still didn't work after that, it doesn't even flash a light on power-up so I am guessing it's completely unusable. I had work to get on with so I just got an external CD-drive which has worked fine so far.

Now to use the recovery disc, I need a CD-rom but I can't see my external CD-ROM listed in the BIOS, does anyone have any idea of how to recover this system using an external CD-drive? In the BIOS, what settings need to be changed?

If anything, I actually have an ipod which could be used as an external hard-drive for rebooting? Does anyone know how to do that?

Any help will be much appreciated. Thank you

Re: HELP PCV-V1

seb21__ — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 09:01:01 GMT

I have already taken a backup so I know I need to reformat my hard drive, but the trouble being that the on-system hard-drive (Matshita -810) stopped working a year ago. And although I had turned into Sony for repair, who apparently replaced it. But it didn't even work after that, it doesn't even flash a light on power-up so I am guessing it's completely unusable. I had work to get on with so I just got an external CD-drive which has worked fine so far.

They say it's repaired but it does not work? I'm lost here. In Germany you get half year limited warranty for the repaired device.

Re: HELP PCV-V1

Akanksha — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 09:06:33 GMT

They say it's repaired but it does not work? I'm lost here. In Germany you get half year limited warranty for the repaired device.

Actually I was in America at the time of the repair and then i moved back to England and the Sony Customer Service here says that they can't do anything about it. I have a case already open for this but no vail:smileysad:

Re: HELP PCV-V1

kee-lo_ — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 16:02:04 GMT

Hello stranger, how are you? :smileygrin:

Sorry to hear about your VAIO, sounds quite bad. Have you got a floppy drive on there? Or maybe another PC you can network to?

Re: HELP PCV-V1

Akanksha — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 16:26:04 GMT

I actually don't have a floppy disk drive but I have an ipod which should act as an external hard drive?

I have internet access at work, I could get a laptop from a friend - how would I go about that?

Re: HELP PCV-V1

kee-lo_ — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 19:21:35 GMT

VAIOs can't boot from an iPod, which is annoying!

On bootdisks.com they have a bootdisk which you can boot from a USB device. This would be very handy for you to get the recovery process going.

Re: HELP PCV-V1

Akanksha — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 12:27:47 GMT

Oh thanks, so do you think I will be able to use an external USB-stick to create a bootdisk and use it to boot up?

But i have noticed that even when I disable all boot-up locations, it doesn't have any impact on the system. i.e it does it's Plug and Play Detection and stops immediately after that. Does that mean the Kernels are corrupted?

Does anyone recommend sending it in to a Sony centre? Or if anyone has used any external repair people who are just as good?

Helpppp........:smileycry:

Re: HELP PCV-V1

kee-lo_ — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 15:20:07 GMT

Problem is that it won't boot from USB sticks

You could send it to VAIO-Link but I hate to see what they'll charge for it.

Re: HELP PCV-V1

Akanksha — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:16:03 GMT

Well I though the most they could charge me for it was around £357 as the highest flat price or something including Parts and Labour...is that not right?

So basically Sony has left me with no option - it's their fault and I will complain!

Re: HELP PCV-V1

kee-lo_ — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 13:30:03 GMT

Well I though the most they could charge me for it was around £357 as the highest flat price or something including Parts and Labour...is that not right?

So basically Sony has left me with no option - it's their fault and I will complain!

Really, who told you that?

Re: HELP PCV-V1

Akanksha — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 16:52:01 GMT

From their support website, although reading again I have been told that it could be higher than that.

I am trying to use a laptop to boot the system but in the meanwhile I have decided to take this matter seriously. I am thinking of reporting this to the consumer protection council

I have an apple ipod which I bought in America but I could get it repaired in the UK. They can support and so should Sony!

Re: HELP PCV-V1

kee-lo_ — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 13:43:32 GMT

From their support website, although reading again I have been told that it could be higher than that.

I am trying to use a laptop to boot the system but in the meanwhile I have decided to take this matter seriously. I am thinking of reporting this to the consumer protection council

I have an apple ipod which I bought in America but I could get it repaired in the UK. They can support and so should Sony!

Yeah I was going to say, they can charge you up to £1000 if they wanted, which I think is wrong as the mobo's probably only worth £140!

Go for it, I like to see people take the bull by the horns!

Hope you win

Re: HELP PCV-V1

Akanksha — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 09:44:26 GMT

Actually Sony contacted me the other day and they have agreed to repairing my computer for FREE! Though I am not holding my breath on this because they did say that the repair will not be carried out if the machine was severely damaged - i don't quite understand what that means!

But for now, i am glad that my computer is going to repaired, in the meanwhile I have bought a toshiba notebook UA200 (vaio's are just tooo expensive!) do you know of a vaio notebook which is a reasonably good spec (dual core and stuff) and is about £800?

Re: HELP PCV-V1

kee-lo_ — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 12:45:53 GMT

Glad to hear you'll get it repaired.

Tosh's are not bad?

A good VAIO depends on what you want it to do, and really I'd wait until February when Vista is finally released.

Re: HELP PCV-V1

Akanksha — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 16:58:14 GMT

Well this particular one is terribly noisy, the fan is completely on all the time and the machine is getting heated up. whereas when I look at my brother's sony laptop (enviously, ahem!) it doesnt make any sounds or anything!

And i dont think I want to wait until Feb I think that would be foolish given that windows doesn't have a good track record of getting it's OS rolling seamlessly first time around - I il give it a year before I move to Vista. Though I think the prices of Windows XP laptops would come down quite a bit by then, may be....?

And as for my computer, well I used to do a lot of mathetical stuff on it, what with my uni programme and stuff but now that I am in the working world (boooo!) all my computer does is check e-mails and browse the internet! Hehe.

Re: HELP PCV-V1

kee-lo_ — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 15:56:51 GMT

You'll be happy to know that a lot of laptop prices are falling to make way for Windows Vista, so it's a good moment to buy if you don't want to have Vista the day it's released (you're wise there LOL)

I have a feeling new VAIOs are coming out for Christmas too