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I use my laptop a lot. I work all day and then I go home and work (and play) some more on my laptop. Sometimes, I go to sleep and my laptop is still running processes (I like to play with theoretical statistics and number crunching). I bought this Sony Vaio last April when my seven year old Dell’s drive finally bit the dust for good and I decided it was time to get a new laptop – one that wasn’t slower than my Windows Mobile cell phone. After seven great years with my Dell, I wouldn’t have guessed that the drive on my new Sony would tank the way it did, and I certainly didn’t anticipate it happening at a critical time like the second day of Affiliate Summit West, but it did.
(note: you can click any image for a large version)
While it would be easier (and cheaper) to just call Sony and have them come out and replace the drive, I opted to do it myself for a few reasons. Mostly, I need to retain the original drive because it contains sensitive client (and personal data), and for those who don’t know, you can usually get a lot of data off an old drive even after it’s been formatted. I didn’t want to take the chance the the drive wouldn’t be disposed of properly. I also think it’s much more fun and provides an excuse to write this post if I do it myself. Besides, someone whose warranty has expired may eventually find and make use of this article.
Before there’s a problem
It seems that the first step in recovering from a hard drive error on my laptop is to kick myself in the butt for not running routine backups. DVDs can be had for about 25 cents each these days, so there is absolutely no reason to not be running backups. I NOW have my laptop set up to run backups once a week to DVD, and if you have a vista laptop, take a look at Sony’s tutorial on how to backup and restore your important files in Windows Vista (it’s a link on that page). I didn’t think I’d need to worry about that yet with a newish laptop and most of my critical files are on my work computer or online, but you really don’t know how much you have to lose until you start to lose it. You should also create (or purchase) your recovery DVDs before you have drive problems. If you wait, you may be without a working laptop for days while you wait for the mail man to bring your disks. Additionally, I think you can still (at the time of this writing) order the recovery disks for Windows XP if you have Vista, just in case you decide you want to downgrade.
Your warranty and my disclaimer
The disclaimer part is simple… If you follow any instructions here, you release me from any claims of liability. It’s your computer and I hope you don’t break anything. With that said, here’s what Sony thinks about you opening up your computer to replace the hard drive yourself:
Hard drive upgrades in the notebook computer are not supported.
NOTES:
* Some notebook computers have instructions for warranty replacement of the hard drive by an end user.
* Although third-party upgrades may be available for some models, they are not supported.
* If the hard drive needs service, repair should be done by an authorized Sony® service center.
* External hard drives may be attached if the appropriate connections are available.
In short, playing doctor with hardware can be fun, but if you can get Sony to replace it for you for free, by all means, do it. If not, keep reading.
The elusive system recovery disks
If you already have recovery disks, skip this section. If you don’t, grab a crossword, TV show, work, or something to read while each DVD burns, two blank DVDs, and make sure you have a spare hour or so for just this process.
After not finding recovery disks, an obvious option on in the computer’s program menus, or any helpful information on Sony’s support pages about how to create recovery disks (did I not search hard enough?), I called support. The first representative told me that there was not a way do create a recovery disk from my existing installation. She then forwarded my call to the parts department so that I could order recovery DVDs. Delivery of the recovery DVDs would take three to five business days, and would cost me $28, I was told. I have no intention of paying for software that I feel should come in the box with the computer and I voiced this concern. The Sony guy explained that they don’t include recovery disks because they’re already on the hard drive. Coming full circle, I had him transfer me back to support so someone could explain how I could burn them. The second support tech put me on hold for a couple minutes and then emailed me the support article and walked me through the following steps, even offering to stay on the phone with me the whole time it was going to take to burn the DVDs. As I imagined someone like me waiting on hold forever for support, I declined so he could help other customers. Here’s the magic recovery disk creation process:
1. Make sure that your laptop is connected to an external power source so the process does not get interrupted.
2. Close all programs.
3. Disconnect any network connections
4. Disconnect any external peripherals (like an external mouse)
5. You can get to the recovery area in one of two ways:
- Search for “vaio recovery center” (this did not work for me) OR
- Hold down the Windows key and hit F1 and then click “Backup and Recovery”
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6. Click “Launch Vaio Recovery Center” (at the very bottom)
7. Click “Create Recovery Disks”
8. Click the START button
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When prompted, you’ll need to throw in a blank DVD. After it finishes the first DVD, you need to throw in the second blank DVD to make the second recovery disk.
It’s not all that painful once you know how to find the tools to do it.
Replace the bad drive with the new one
Before you start pulling apart your machine, make sure you have both Phillips head and slotted head screwdrivers handy. I also like to keep a blank sheet of paper on a flat surface and a pen handy so I can put screws on it and write where they came from. OK.. lets get started.
1. Unplug the external power supply and remove the battery.
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2. Remove 4 screws from the bottom of the laptop.
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3. Flip it over and look at the top of the keyboard. To release the keyboard, you’ll need to push in two small tabs. One is just above the F1 and F2 keys, and the other is just above the Insert/Pause key. I gently pressed the tip of the slotted screwdriver into each tab one at a time, while lifting the keyboard with my other hand.
4. Now flip the keyboard toward you, but be careful of that green cable.
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5. Remove the three additional chassis screws now visible (circled in the picture below).
6. Flip the keyboard back over and let it rest there.
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7. Gently slide the palm rest chassis toward you, but be careful of the hidden white cable.
8. Go ahead and flip it over. THERE’S the hard drive! We’re getting close.
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9. Now remove the three hard drive mounting screws shown below. If you have four, you’re lucky. Sony stiffed me a screw.
10. Now you can unplug the SATA cable from the drive. Be very careful to not rip that cable. Mine is taped to the drive, and you may have to give it a little tug. Just be patient and careful with it. AFTER I got mine unplugged, I realized that they taped it on the bottom of the drive, too. You may not even be able to remove the tape until the drive is already out, so have fun with that.
11. Now remove the old drive from it’s cage by removing all four edge screws (they’re hiding under small strips of black tape) and replace it with the new hard drive, replacing the screws, as well.
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12. Now you just need to put it all back together by reversing all the directions above and replace the battery and external power connection.
NOTE: We all make mistakes, and I’m not immune. When I got into the BIOS (see below), it wouldn’t find my drive. I pulled it all back apart and realized that I had accidentally disconnected this little guy. Watch out for that.
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Format and Install
With every screw back in place, it’s time to set up the drive and bust out your recovery disks. For starters, turn on the power and hit the F2 key while booting to enter the BIOS to make sure the drive is recognized. Put in the first recovery disk and then turn the computer off and then back on again. On the screen that pops up, select “Vaio Recovery Center”.
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On the next screen, select “Skip” and click the “Next” button. You will be given an option to install all the extras Sony wants to install. Although I’ll end up removing many of them, I installed all of them for the few I will use. Make your own choice here and then proceed with the installation.
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After a disk swap, lots of waiting, a bunch of steps and a few reboots, Windows Vista’s installation and configuration will begin and a short time later, you’re back in business.
Am I all done?
Nope. Remember what I said about backups when we started? Well, you have a clean install and a good drive. Now’s the time to set up your routine backups before you start loading your drive up with critical data. While you’re at it, set up that firewall and anti-virus software.
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on March 1st, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Joe,
That sucks that your hard drive died so unexpectedly, especially during the summit. Freaking Murphy’s law!
Anyway, you could also create weekly or monthly images of your complete laptop using a Bart PE disk and Ghost. I works well and backs up everything.
Jonathan
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on March 1st, 2008 at 8:17 pm
It’s make me deeply known about inside of Sony Vaio.
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on March 2nd, 2008 at 5:57 pm
That sucks! I hate those screens of death…
Mommie
http://www.mommiehome.net
on March 4th, 2008 at 12:28 am
Jonathan: The images and Ghost are a good idea, but the DVDs are the simple route. Ultimately, I’ll probably grab a 1TB drive (they’re cheap now), split it into 2 partitions, and use it as an external backup drive for my TV and my laptop.
Mommie: I hate ‘em, but I guess I got pretty lucky this time. I’d feel a lot better, though, if my drive on my less-than-a-year-old laptop hadn’t failed at all.
on March 4th, 2008 at 1:12 am
Makes me glad I didn’t buy the Vaio, since I only wanted it because it was pink ;)
Is the TB drives worth the price? My husband wants to install one into our tower, when we buy a new one, and I’m still unsure on it (it would be our back-up drive).
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on March 4th, 2008 at 1:25 am
Saraj: I imagine it would be worth it. I guess it depends on the brand, but I think the price I saw was around $280. In a few years, you’ll probably find 2TB drives for $250-$300.
on March 4th, 2008 at 11:17 am
My desktop Dell is reaching age 8 and I have just about maxxed out my HD, so I moved some things over to an external and freed up some room until I can get a new computer. Probably another Dell! I am thinking of going the Dell outlet route this time since I know some people have had good luck that way and have been able to afford more than they would through regular purchasing on a new Dell.
Just a little laugh…As I was reading your post I kept thinking “he really IS a geek!” ;)
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on March 4th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Webduck: LOL… If you only knew how geeky I really am.
on March 5th, 2008 at 1:27 am
Wow, great post. I have a SZ myself and I just wrote ‘backup’ on a paper today somewhere so I won’t forget. Good thing you could fix it yourself. In case something happens to mine, I’ll probably come back to this post. Because mine comes from Japan and I don’t think they’ll fix it over here..
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on March 5th, 2008 at 2:40 am
jamesd: Don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS feed with the big orange button above because if I have any other issues or make any tweaks to the laptop, I’ll write posts about them.
on March 9th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Ok, I have a question which is semi-related to this. The DVDRW in my laptop stopped reading disks. I found a great dealon an LG USB DVDRW ($20 can you believe it! And it works faster than any drive I’ve ever had). However the issue is: I cannot, under any circumstances change the BIOS to boot from the USB drive. I can boot from a USB Hard Drive, USB Flash Drive and these are the only options. I have searched until I’m blue in the face because if in fact I had to backup and reinstall/I wouldn’t be able to, or have one hell of a hard time doing it. Any ideas on how to boot from a USB DVDRW?
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on March 17th, 2008 at 2:08 am
[...] Chicago Tribune must have thought they were getting old or the standard for fame …www.usatoday.comMy Sony Vaio VGN-SZ430N Hard Drive Crashed and How I Fixed It I use my laptop a lot. I work all day and then I go home and work and play some more on my laptop. [...]
on March 18th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
[...] pretty confident you know your way around a computer, you can attempt a DIY job. JoeTech provides groovy directions on manual hard drive retrieval, along with tons of juicy color photos to guide you in your endeavor. Detail is the key word here; [...]
on March 18th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Beth: I feel bad now, because I just saw your question. Good question… The BIOS should have a standard “CD” boot option, which would be my very first guess. I would hook the drive up with nothing in it, set that as the first boot device in the BIOS and see if it tries to boot from it. If it does, you’re in business. If not, you have two things you can try. First, you can look for a BIOS update. It may be possible that there’s a newer version of your BIOS that can support your needs. If not, you can boot from a USB thumb drive if needed. Just search Google for instructions on how to set that up. I’ll probably post how to do it at some point when I have more time.
on July 20th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
[...] of us. It’s okay, because you have like 20 backups, right RIGHT! No That’s okay because this detailed tutorial walks you through laptop hard drive recovery. If your hard drive is completely fubared, you could [...]
on July 29th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Thanks Joe! I’ve been googling around in an attempt to figure out how to create the recovery discs in safe mode. Windows key + F1 method works.
on August 5th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Joe,
Thank for the comprehensive tutorials. However, I wonder if I restored the system (re-installing the OS) using the recovery discs on a new hdd, would a hidden recovery partition be created on it too? I still want to retain the hidden partition for the ease of recovery, rather than depend on a set of recovery discs.
on August 10th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
James,
Yes. The recovery disks will create a hidden recovery partition for you. In fact, I recently had lots of OS problems, so I decided to recover with this hidden partition and everything went very smoothly.
on October 15th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Terrific job, Joe. Your help was invaluable. Great pictures! My hat is off to you. Keep up the great work!!!!
on October 22nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
thanks, joe! luckily, my hard drive hasn’t crashed… i’ve been hunting around for a way to port over vista OEM on my VAIO VGN-SR190 to a new, bigger, hard drive. this looks like it’ll work.
on October 22nd, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Marty: Thanks. I have another laptop I’m planning on tearing down completely with detailed photos of every step, so watch for that.
matthew: I’m glad it helped you. Please do come back and let me know if it worked out or if you have questions.
on October 31st, 2008 at 5:02 pm
thank you , thank you!!!
took all of about 20 mins to install the new drive in my Vaio. (and, the Vista image restore worked quite well!)
This would not have gone quite so easily without your detailed description and pictures.
thanks again
on November 16th, 2008 at 3:33 am
I’ll try this tutorial… i hope it’ll fix everything
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on November 28th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I also had a similar story. But my hard-disk got down before I could burn the recovery disks. Isn’t there any other ways to get the recovery disks without paying 28$ to Sony? Any torrent?
on November 28th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Alicia: I’m glad it helped!
askok: None that I’m aware of. If your computer didn’t come with them, you’ll have to order them from Sony, I think.
on January 3rd, 2009 at 8:44 am
Hi Joe,
I’m very glad to have found your website. I have the exact same model, and am looking to replace the hard drive myself as it’s been replaced once already and is giving signs of clunking out again now. I’m just wondering what model drive you replaced the faulty one with. Will any SATA 5,400 RPM 2.5″ internal drive do, or since it’s an “ultraportable”, does it require a smaller 1.8″ drive? Thanks for your help!
on April 10th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
i was told by the computer guys at my college that i need a new hard drive for my vaio VGN-T360P… Where do I buy one?
on April 11th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
A Fellow: You can get a new hard drive just about anywhere, but you should make sure it’s the 2.5″ drive if you have the same model laptop.
on June 2nd, 2009 at 4:47 am
Shirley make sure whether your motherboard supports SCSI or IDE. OR just tkae out the hard drivge and take it to your local PC world. I use eBay to find hard drives as they are dead cheap their.
on June 18th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Interesting post.. this has helped a lot.
on June 18th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
I have just gotten my hard drive replaced on my Sony Vaio VGNNR285SE. I have the recovery disk 1 in and can follow your instructions exactly but I’m stuck on the system recovery options page. When I select Vaio Recovery Center it says: Recovery Tools are being launched, Please wait.
Then it just disappears and is still on the system recovery page. I’m not sure what to do?
on June 28th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Awesome help page Joe. I love it. Any suggestions here would be great though. Geek squad replaced my HD w/ double the size and my recovery discs only load up past stage 2 of 5. I burned copies of the discs and got further thru the recovery to 3 of 5 at 60% and I get error message 226. I tried again and got error 220. Sony says putting in a bigger HD could be the prob and they don’t make my model recovery disc anymore. The sony store wants to charge $200 to reinstall what I already PAID for when I bought my laptop (RIDICULOUS). They should include these discs when we buy our laptops so we can rule out human error which is always a possibility. Now I’m going to try and buff out my original copies to see if I can get them to work better. I have the model VGN SZ330P which is less than 3 years old. What is the cheapest route to get this baby running. Thanks, Tim AFitterNewYou@AOL.com
on June 30th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Rebecca: That sounds like it could be a problem with the recovery disks or possibly the hardware and the recovery process is hanging because it doesn’t know what to do. If you can, obtain new recovery disks and attempt it again. If it still fails, take it to a small local computer repair shop. A good one will sometimes take a quick look and be able to guess (better than I) at what the problem is.
on June 30th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Tim: If I were in your situation, I’d start by checking to see for sure if the hard drive is too big. I always replace the hard drive before selling a laptop (data security) and did this with an old laptop where I found out that my new hard drive was too big. You should be able to find a copy of the manual online and it should state any limitations. If you still need better recovery disks, search on ebay. There’s often “parts only” or broken laptops for sale and if you find your model, you might be able to convince the seller to sell you just the recovery disks (if he or she has them) on the side for $10. If not, email me (joe@joetech.com) and I can do a search when I have a few minutes.
on June 30th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Thank you for posting this repair information Joe, this saved me a lot of money and guess work. I have the VGN-SZ430N as well, and your step-by-step instructions made it possible to diagnose and repair my laptop without having to deal with Sony. I was a little concerned though, because I decided to upgrade the hard drive to a 320 GB rather than the 160 GB (it was only $5.00 more on Ebay, how could I pass that up?) , but everything went smooth. I think the fact that I ordered the recovery DVDs from Sony helped with that. I had to order the DVDs because my hard drive was too far gone to create recovery disks. Thanks again for the info.
on July 1st, 2009 at 12:25 am
Big Daddy: Glad I could help. I’m sure this thing will clunk out on me again some time soon and I’ll have another repair how-to to post for everyone. =)
on July 3rd, 2009 at 5:42 am
Really helpful step by step instructions pal, only a few take their time out to do things like this.
You should add the facebook social mark too by the way.
on July 7th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Thanks Joe and Rebecca for the help. I got the Geek Squad to get my laptop running by manually downloading all the drivers, but I lost a lot of the functionability of the features that now aren’t working b/c not everything is installed. Sony told me they no longer make my recovery discs and the Sony store told me they would charge $200 dollars to try to make a recovery disc that may not even work. I’m going to try to find someone selling a recovery disc again before I contact you Joe. Thanks for offering to help look for a recovery disc. That’s awfuly nice of you. The only thing I could find last time was on torrent, but I don’t know if its always safe to download from there. I know its illegal to download software, but I would imagine I should be legal downloading it since I already paid for mine when I bought my laptop. Laws are tricky though. Good luck everyone. Tim
on July 7th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
CRL: I might add that. Thanks
Tim: Downloading software isn’t illegal… just MOST of it. =) If you find that you need help getting the recovery discs, let me know and I’ll see what I can come up with.
on July 22nd, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Joe,
I got the windows BSOD and decided to back up all my data and restore my C: drive. However, after it formatted my drive, the restore failed to load and install windows vista completely. I called Sony and they told me that my restore partition must be corrupted and I should purchase the recovery DVD for $28…Now I rather not pay that. Since the drive is now formatted, your solution for creating the recovery disc won’t work for me (I should have done this before trusting I can restore from HDD). I have a Sony VGN-SZ470N model. Is there anywhere I can download the recovery disc with drivers for this? thx. PD
on August 26th, 2009 at 8:41 am
I’m having some problems with my Vaio’s mother board. Best Buy told me it would cost around $900 to fix. It was about a year old when it died.
on September 2nd, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Hi Joe,
Great article! I just have one question: Will my recovery DVD’s work if I swap my bad drive out with a larger one? I have a 250GB in there now and want to upgrade to a 500.
Thank you,
Darwyn
on September 13th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Hi Joe,
My sister has a Sony VGN-NR298D just a little over a year old, right after the warranty ran out, the hardrive crashed. Took it back to the store where she purchased it and they wanted around $400.00 to replace it and set it back up. She cannot afford to do it at this time. So thought that I would put a new harddrive in for her. I have some experience working with computers. Have installed hardrives in desktops before, but never a laptop. Do I install the hardrive on this particular laptop the same way as you have in your instructions. She also has alot of pic’s on the crashed hardrive of her Dad that she just lost to cancer thsi spring and was wondering if there is anyway to retreive the data from her crashed hardrive? Also she does not have any recovery disk as she did not know to make any back-ups. Any help would greatly be appreciated.
Thanks for posting this very informative article.
on September 13th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Darwyn: I’m not 100% sure, but I think so. Just be sure to look up the drive size limitations fro your laptop model to be certain it will take a 500GB drive before you buy it. I learned the hard way on an older laptop.
Norma: First, I have to admit that I know nothing about that model. If it looks almost identical to mine, then the instructions will probably be the same. Otherwise, proceed with caution and you’ll probably want to look for any instructions on how to open up that specific model. As for the recovery disks, all of that is stored in a special partition, so try booting it up and hitting F11. If that’s not the right key, check your manual. If you can boot to the recovery partition, great. Just go in and make recovery DVDs. If not, you can buy them from Sony for about $30 or so. After you complete the recovery process on a new drive, you want to save whatever files you need off the bad drive that you can save. To do this, I suggest getting an external drive enclosure like this one: http://lnk.gd/i8 Put the bad hard drive in that enclosure and hook it up to your laptop. Then install Active Undelete (http://www.active-undelete.com) It’s $40, but worth every penny. That will recover most if not all of the photos and other files that you don’t want to lose.
Hope that helps.
on September 17th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
I found your blog doing a web search today 9/17.
I think I better share this on my blog. Thanks
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on February 1st, 2010 at 10:21 am
About your missing screw, if you examine that carefully, that screw is the bottom corner screw you have taken out. So, Sony did not stiff you on that screw. Good job describing how to take that out. Thank you!