Sony Vaio VGN-NR11M/S

[atul_agwl]

Hi,

I have recently bought Sony Vaio VGN-NR11M/S. I have few queries and if you guys could answer then it would be very greatful.

1. Will the recovery disc be able to reinstall the OS (Windows VISTA Home Premium- pre installed on my laptop) if i want to format the C: drive in future ?
2. How much space does a recovery disc would require for this model and will it include the data files as well ?
3. I have put some data on my laptop of around 15 GB, will it affect any way to create the recovery disc now ?
4. I have also installed OpenOffice2.3 on my laptop, will it affect any way to create the recovery disc now ?
5. Does the recovery disc includes all the software installation that are there in my laptop since I bought it ?
6. Shall I uninstall all the softwares which I mannually installed before creating the recovery disk.
7. The spec says that the Hard disk if of 160GB but only 141 GB is visible. Does the system files takes so much of space (i.e. around 20GB) ?

Many thanks in advance for your time.

Regards,
Atul

[drinkfeckarse]

Hi there!

With regards to recovery disks, your machine will use approximately 3 DVD’s to make the recovery set. This is about 12GB.

When you use them in the future there are various options, one is to restore the pc completely. This will return it to the factory settings and will be as if you just took it out of the box.

The other option is to recover C drive only so any files you have stored on other drives will be left alone.

I don't think it matters that you have installed open office etc with regards to making recovery disks; if you do restore your pc you will have to install all your programs again.

With regards to your hard disk and not seeing about 20GB, The recovery partition will be hidden so that accounts for 10-12 GB. I'm not sure about the other 8-10 GB.

Hope this helps. My suggestion is to burn recovery disks now! You'll curse the day your machine crashes and you haven't got the recovery disks!

[Blencogo]

Hi Atul and welcome to the Club.

1. Yes, but you will need to install all updates released since the purchase date.
2. As drinkfeckarse said - 3 X DVD±R
3. Not usually as anything installed since new will not be included in the Recovery Discs. However, some programs do cause problems and must be uninstalled - anything using Virtual Drives (Daemon Tools, Alcohol etc) and Norton GoBack for example.
4. No as this will not be part of the Recovery Discs.
5. No - the Recovery ONLY includes software preinstalled before you bought it. Anything you have added or updated will not be included.
6. No, it will not be used.
7. Your hard disc has 160,000,000,000 bytes capacity.
Your computer's operating system cannot count properly, Windows counts in Binary (everything to the base of 2).
Because Windows uses the binary system, the nearest it can get to 1,000 bytes (a kilobyte) is 1,024 bytes - calculated as two to the power ten (2^10=1024). So it uses 1024 bytes of your storage to count a kilobyte. Similarly, it counts 1,024 KB as 1MB and 1,024MB to get 1GB. This means your operating system is counting 1,073,741,824 bytes (2^30=1073741824) of your storage as 1 GB. Windows measures your 160GB drive as only 149GB.

Go to:

Control Panel -> Administrative Tasks -> Computer Management -> Disc Management

to see what capacity you have and how much is used.

You will probably find a Recovery Partition of about 7.5GB and drive C:\ capacity of about 141.5GB.

[atul_agwl]

Thanks very much. One more query...

1. I don't have any partition other than hidden recovery partition. Is there any way to create more partitions other than C: out of 141 GB available hard disk.

2. As you said that any software installed after I bought the laptop will not be included in the recovery disk. Please confirm that same thing apply to the data files (ie. personal documents & photos) that I have copied into the C: and these will also not be part of recovery disk. And as per my understanding if I restore the C: in future using the recovery disk, these personal docs and photos will not be restored.

Waiting for your replies . Many thanks for your time.

Regards,
Atul