I have replaced the HDD in a number of IBM "X" series notebooks and they don't even have a CD or CDROM drive!

What I do now, partly because I was too cheap to shell out for the docking station (media slice IBM called it!). My current X40 and X61 have excellent USB support and an external USB DVD-ROM serves me well when restoring the operating system and files to a new drive.

My last 500G external drive cost me not much over $125. With it, apart from backups, I keep images of all my HDDs on all the pcs I administer.

I don't know about Sony, but replacing the drive was really easy with the IBM. Booting from the external USB cd drive and then recovering the image from the USB drive.

I realise that you may not have an image of the old drive, but you could probably do a full XP install from the external drive. I would be reluctant to start pulling IDE cables out of my desktops. I must admit I haven't priced a IDE converter. The imaging software takes care of all the partitioning, formating and transfer of files. I have used the IBM/Lenovo backup image and also Acronis TrueImage. The latter was used to swap out the 30G HDD for a 100G HDD in my IBM R31 - using an external USB drive.

As I say I don't know about Sony.
More Luck
Martin

I also read Williams tutorial and he does mention that the IDE adapter should only cost around $20 (Canadian that is).

I just tried booting off the WindowsXP install cd with my R51 connected to an external USB CD drive. It works.

As I say I don't know Sony, but the IBM has USB support on install.

I also tried it with my brand new $379.99 Acer Vista notebook and that boots from the USB as well. You have to go into the system bios to change the boot order.

I would imagine the Sony has got BIOS support for usb - the R51 is three years old. However, this is not a cheap solution unless you need the drives for other purposes.

Martin

Hi Martin,

Problem is that the Sony won't boot from USB, it has a Phoenix BIOS which only has Floppy, CD, HD and something else (not USB but it might be LS120).

However, you got me thinking and looking at the Phoenix site, it states that the Phoenix BIOS will boot from USB, so I may be able to flash the BIOS to a version that does boot from USB which would definitely solve the problem as I could then load XP from an external CD drive

Thanks

First I would try copying the files again. You will get the file missing message if the file is corrupt. If that is the case you may get that message for a couple of other system files as it looks for them when booting.

Also could be an issue while copying the files. Laptop drives are usually set to Device 0 by default. So you could have issues if you have another device on the same cable, no matter the position, if you don't jumper them correctly.

I haven't read the article but I believe the reason for FAT32 partition is so that it can be read and written to from a standard DOS.

Red

I am not sure but I think to flash the bios you might need to be able to boot! A bit of a "Catch 22"! The bios flash upgrade is usually supplied by the motherboard manufacturer (as I am sure that you have read on the Phoenix site).
I know when I updated an IBM they sent me an upgrade patch - which I think ran from a floppy - again a "catch 22".

However, looking in the BIOS setup for my Acer (Pheonix v1.3309) under the "Main" menu at the bottom was an option entitled "D2D Recovery" - which says: "Allow user to enable/disable the Disk-to-Disk recovery".
The General help says:
"..... incorrect settings may cause boot failure; load Setup Default values to recover...." - No kidding!

The D2D has not been changed and its default is [Enabled]

At least you now know a version of Pheonix BIOS that supports USB.

Martin

When I was setting up a dual boot I was getting the "/ntldr not found or corrupt error".
Doing some research I read that the files could be copied from a known working system. So, I copied the ntldr file from a working XP machine to the machine that I was getting the error.
Attempting the boot after this I didn't get the ntldr error but a different one that related to the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) dll. (I think that it was "hal.dll not found" - but I was getting a little out of my depth by this time!)

So, I decided to retrace my steps. I could boot WindowsXP after I had performed the XP install but I could not boot into Vista. I knew it was still there as it was still showing on the C: drive. XP was installed on the D: drive and as I say the computer booted just after I installed XP. So it would seem that ALL the bootloader files and the bootloader itself were working as they should.

However, the bootloader for XP is not the same as the one for Vista and as William pointed out in his tutorial you need to fix-up the Vista bootloader so that the computer will boot into Vista and hopefully (optionally XP) using the bootloader menu.

The fix was to use the Vista install DVD, except that instead of doing an install you chose the "Repair your computer" option. This hopefully restores what the XP install did to the Vista boot. It didn't work for me!

I had a backup image of Vista so in the worst case I could re-install that from scratch. I thought I would try a few more things first.

I re-installed XP again so that I could boot into XP again - whatever I did to the Vista install and the bootloader I am not sure. I tried to edit the boot.ini file using the bcdedit.exe utility which you can access when you boot from the Vista install DVD. I was not successful!

Doing some more research I came accross a utility called VistaBoot Pro. This was supposed to sort out all bootloader problems and configure your boot.ini file as it should. I think they say bcdedit made simple.

This utility runs in XP and you can edit the boot.ini file (I am not sure if it is the same file for XP and Vista but I think that it is). To cut a long story short - after installing Vistaboot Pro and running it to fix up my bootloaders I was able to boot into XP and Vista. I think that there was an option to load the "Legacy Bootloader" - to be honest I am not quite sure what I did but it fixed the problem.

Full circle ---- I am not saying that Vistaboot Pro is what RedW needs to fix his XP only problem, but Squirrelnmoose is probably correct that the system files are not being found when the system boots - not that they are missing or corrupt. The message is generic.

You also get the same "Repair your computer" on the XP install CD. However, this does not help RedW as he can't boot from the CD! What I think happens when you run this is that the "repair" fixes up the bootloader (appropriate for your system) and makes entries in boot.ini so that the bootloader knows where to find things.

There is a very detailed explaination here:
BOOT.INI file for Win2000/XP/2003

Red's case should be a lot simpler that this as all he wants to do is a single boot! However, there is a lot of information in the link above that might give some hints on what to edit. There is also a utility called bootcfg.exe (see the MS page How to edit the Boot.ini file in Windows XP - but it is only available in XP Pro (not Home).

Hope this helps
Martin

To do a BIOS update, it must be for the specific computer and model. Look at the mfg. website if you want to update the BIOS. The realease version notes usualy have what changes/fixes have been made in each version.
Be aware if a BIOS update goes wrong the computer will be useless. Some BIOS's can be recovered, but that's another post.

Thanks for the responses!

Martin - I have the original HDD so I could upgrade the Bios whilst that is installed and then proceed with the upgrade.....at least that's the theory!

On your other response regarding the bootloader, I think I know what you are saying but I need to re-read it and review the link to work out exactly what you are suggesting. Something for the weekend I think!

Squirrel - I am a bit concerned about a BIOS flash, especially as the Sony site doesn't really provide much help on that. But it really does seem like the answer. I guess I need to start pestering Sony and Phoenix for the correct file to ensure I get it right.

Thanks again

What's the model number? (Sony Vaio VGN)
Should be something like, VGN-A150. Usually the exact model and version is on the bottom of laptops.

VGN-S1XP
Vaio : Support : Drivers and Updates - that model

BIOS Update R0072G4

This BIOS Update fixes following issue :

- Improved display functionality
Vaio : Support - where to download

The executable: PHBSYS-00775107-UN.exe - but it doesn't say anything about USB??