Bloatware-free clean installation of Vista on laptop

baby_frogmella

Hi

This was perhaps a bit extreme but on my Vaio FZ31S notebook i completely wiped the hard disk (using the original recovery DVD) so that i could install a fresh copy of Vista Home premium of my own without all the bloatware (which Sony is famous for ). Anyway what happens now is that when i try to boot from the new Vista installation disc, i get repeated messages saying "no operating system found". Do i need to load the drivers (bootable?) for the hard disk? Where can i find them? Sony's website only has .exe driver files which you can only install after Vista has been installed
http://support.vaio.sony.co.uk/downloads/preinstalled/preinstalled.asp?site=voe_en_GB_cons&c=0&s=VGN-FZ&m=3058

To make things worse, 2 out of 3 of my original recovery DVDs have been scratched (i think) and won't be read by the pc so i will have to purchase them from Sony :mad: Serves me right for messing about too much!!!!

Edit: Sony have just told me it costs £37.50 for the 3 recovery DVDs....i told them to bog off

tomsutton529

your recovery disk sounds like they only contain your documents and the software installed, as oposed to a proper recovery. However you will need a copy of vista, either go out and buy one or ask some mates with the know how to get you one. The install of vista should be easy, however you may need to get the .exe you mentioned to install all the drivers. if you are trying to get rid of all the bloatware then using the recovery discs will only put it back one, so as i said above a clean install of the OS is needed then update the drivers.

baby_frogmella

sorry, i didn't make myself very clear. What i meant was that i'm trying to install a fresh paid-for copy of Vista (ie not the copy supplied by Sony) but the pc says "operating system not found" when i try to boot from this dvd which was probably caused by completely erasing the hard disk. So how do i get around this?

tomsutton529

got ya... you have to go into the BIOS setting of the laptop (press F2 or F3 when booting) and set the Boot Order to CD/DVD first. then re-boot the laptop and it should come up saying press any key to boot from CD.

damo24

It sounds like the problem is that the laptop is booting from the hard drive instead of the DVD drive.

When you first start it up you should see an option for "Boot Order" or something like that. If you do not see this option you will have to enter the BIOS (usually called setup) and change the boot order. DO NOT change anything else in the BIOS other than the boot order.

This should allow you to boot from the recovery disc. The problem is the recovery disc will still contain the bloatware that you are trying to avoid.

Your best option is to borrow an OEM installation disc from a friend. This will install a vanilla version of Vista then you can use the driver disc to install the required drivers.

baby_frogmella

yes the DVD I'm using is an OEM version of Vista and the boot order in the BIOS is set to DVD/CD first and i can hear the disk spinning but i still get the message "no operating system found" multiple times. Could it be that the OEM Vista DVD is non-bootable?

damo24

By OEM I meant a standard Microsoft OEM disc which will come without any bloatware. The image stored on the disc will have the Sony programs already installed on it.

If the BIOS is set to boot from the DVD you should see a message saying something like "Press any key to boot from CD". Pressing a key then should begin the boot process.


The disc in your image certainly appears to be an installation disc and if it opens on the computer that would suggest that the disc's ok.