Installing vista, (recovery partition problems?)

[awillson]

Hi,

I am a Computer Science student and have access to the MSDNAA website where by i can download Vista Business, with a free licence. I was wondering though, how would this effect my small recovery partition on my laptop when i install vista? Will it overwrite my recovery partition with a windows vista recovery? or would it still hold windows xp recovery, thus inserting the recovery disk, would it install xp back onto my computer.

Also are their any links from sony which update various drivers? or would i have to manually search for these? some are particualry quite hard to find.

Cheers.

[skykit84]

Hi,

The recovery partition is only affected if during install, you delete it

otherwise, the partition will remain

then if it comes to recovering, you just hit the shortcut F key (forgot which one) and it will bring the laptop to factory state

i would still make the recovery dvds though just incase because that too will bring the laptop to factory state including the partitions...

[Blencogo]

It will restore your Vaio to factory condition - to XP. This partition will remain if you just install Vista on drive C:. It will be overwritten if you do a full format first.

Sony have not yet released a full set of Vista drivers - these are not expected until the retail launch of Vista'

[awillson]

another question:

As we all know sony have the recovery partition, i also have the C (windows, program files etc) and D (documents, music etc) partitions on my vaio. If i were to format both C,D and the recovery and form one partition (C) to install windows (i.e. have no recovery partition now) would this void my warranty . Ideally i would like to have no recovery partition and just one C drive.

Note i have a fully licenced copy of windows pro CD anyway.

thanks.

[skykit84]

Again, if you create the recovery DVDs then if any faults should occur, you could just recover the laptop which would put the partition/s back

although if the laptop is dead then no ones the wiser either way

[Blencogo]

No you won't void your warranty - Sony actually support this option in the Recovery Utility. If you run the Recovery Utility and 'Recover My Computer', option 2 allows you to resize your partitions and you can choose to remove 😧 altogether and you can also choose to remove the Recovery Partition.

Make at least two sets of Recovery Discs first - once you remove the Recovery Partition you cannot reinstate it with the Recovery Discs. The only way to keep your Recovery Partition "just in case" is to make a 'Mirror' with Acronis TrueImage or Norton Ghost.

However, you will forfeit Sony support for your system if you install any OS other than the original OEM system.

[awillson]

thanks blencogo.

Does the recovery utility therefore allow me to create and use a recovery disc without the need of the recovery partition? (i.e. i recover from the disc and not from the recovery partition)?

thanks again. :smileygrin:

[Thalamus.]

thanks blencogo.

Does the recovery utility therefore allow me to create and use a recovery disc without the need of the recovery partition? (i.e. i recover from the disc and not from the recovery partition)?

thanks again.  :smileygrin:

Yes it does..

It would be a good idea to create a few Recovery disc sets, in case a set becomes damaged in the future, because once you've remove the recovery partition the only way to obtain a recovery set would be to purchase a set via Vaio-Link..

There are benefits in having a partitioned drive, see this thread

[kee-lo_]

This is why I'd avoid buying a non-Vista VAIO because the recovery system becomes obsolete