VGN FW48E/H - Can I use recovery disks for a replacement hard drive?

[siwoott]

I want to replace the hard drive on my Vaio due to space and speed constraints. When I purchased the laptop 3 years ago, it came with Vista Premium and the first thing I did was create the recovery disks which are still safe.

Can I use these recovery disks on the replacement hard drive once installed in the laptop to put the OS back ? If so, does it put the recovery partition back as well?

If I can't use the recovery disks, what options do I have ?

All help is gratefully received and thankyou in advance !! Points coming your way if you can help !!

Simon

[rich912]

Hi simon,

Yes the recovery disks can be used to install the original OS on a new hard drive, plus it will reinstate the hidden recovery partition.

The only caveat is that the replacement drive must not be an Advanced Format technology drive. These AF drives use 4096 bites per sector as opposed to the 512 bites per sector used for the original hard drive fitted in your machine. The recovery disks will not be AF aware and will therefore not work with this new technology.

Rich

Message was edited by: rich912

[siwoott]

Hi Rich

Thanks for the reply, appreciate that. The new HDD is a Seagate Momentus 500Gb and I believe is has the 4k sectors. Having just tried to use the recovery disks on the Vaio, I've got an error message stating "An error occurred while executing an application", it goes on to state that the operation was not completed and gives me Error : 333

So, based on this situation, guess I'm looking for plan B! I'm looking at cloning the original drive (using Norton Ghost/Acronis or similiar) and restore both original partitions. I would then plan to run the recovery from the hidden partition. Is this feasible do you know ?

Thanks again

Simon

[rich912]

Hi Simon,

I have no experiance of cloning from standard to advanced format drives but understand that the cloning software must support partition alignment. Acronis True Image WD edition claims to do this.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119

Not sure whether this works with other makes of drive...

You may also possibly need a Microsoft hotfix.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2553708

If there is any possibility of returning the drive and/or swapping it for a 512 sector drive this would surely be the more simple option.

Rich

[siwoott]

Thanks again Rich, I will investigate further.

In terms of a return, I bought it from eBuyer and have opened the anti-static bag so guess this is now considered not new anymore and not returnable?

Regards

Simon