Can a hidden partition get corrupted?

[hayfaz]

My Vaio laptop became unstable and decided to reformat and reinstall by itself. Now my laptop has a new installation of Windows and all my old files are lost. While I accept that my files are gone, I feel very uncomfortable about using my laptop for sensitive information like online banking. How do I know whether the 'hidden partition' in my laptop has not been corrupted by virus?

Isn't the hidden partition on a hard drive, where data can read and write? How do I know whether recovery information on the hidden partition hasn't changed? Someone on the forums said that it is 'unlikely' that the virus can attack the partition but it doesn't mean it is impossible, right? Does Sony want to take full responsibility for any data hacking that subsequently happens to my laptop? Probably not.

And yet, Sony customer support want to charge almost GBP50 for recovery discs when their competitor Dell is giving theirs away for free to those who ask. I paid for 3 years extended warranty and my laptop is less than 1 year old. Surely 1 set of recovery discs are included?

Customer support (I spoke to N Jacob) on the phone was less than polite and never sent me the instructions on how to create the recovery discs that he promised. N Jacob really needs to go on training on how to stay calm at annoyed customers and be more proactive. Without customers, customer support and his job won't exist.

I am a long-time Sony fan but the customer service is enough to make me want to boycott Sony for good 😞

[Thalamus.]

hayfaz wrote:
My Vaio laptop became unstable and decided to reformat and reinstall by itself. Now my laptop has a new installation of Windows and all my old files are lost. While I accept that my files are gone, I feel very uncomfortable about using my laptop for sensitive information like online banking. How do I know whether the 'hidden partition' in my laptop has not been corrupted by virus?
Isn't the hidden partition on a hard drive, where data can read and write? How do I know whether recovery information on the hidden partition hasn't changed? Someone on the forums said that it is 'unlikely' that the virus can attack the partition but it doesn't mean it is impossible, right? 

The HDD recovery partition is part of your hard dive but it is an EISA partition & it's extremely unlikely that the data could be changed in any way..

Also "if" the data had been changed I would not have expected it to allow you to perform a system recovery..

If your vaio has been restored back to factory settings I would say your HDD recovery partition is sound & therefore you can create a set of recovery disc yourself by following the guide below..

hayfaz wrote:
 Does Sony want to take full responsibility for any data hacking that subsequently happens to my laptop? Probably not.

As to the question above I doubt any company could give you a 100% guarantee because who knows what nasties could be lurking around the corner, so to speak..

Best we can suggest, as this is a user forum, is that make sure you have an suitable firewall & upto date antivirus program..

As I said above if your Vaio has been restored to factory settings I would say your vaio is as good as new software wise..

If you want to run an antivirus check & your system shows it's clean then personally I would not worry..