Hi, this one for the techys not busy at work today

Had to replace the HDD in a sony pcg-632m.
This notebook has an external usb cdrom.

Swapped over a HDD containing windows hoping it would boot up, but now displays 'operating system not found' and cannot get it to boot off the cd rom. Have not been able to get a definitive answer off the www.

The closest solution is to partition the replacement drive in another laptop to give it a bootable sector. I have assumed this is the solution as BIOS ignores the external drive and the defective drive didnt show operating system on c:

Is the bios looking in d: only? Have set bios to default.
What else can I try?

Thanks

Hall

You need to unterrupt the normal startup procedure, it usually gives you the option to press F1, shift or whatever the sony hardware specifies.

Then you tell it to boot from the CD.

Default bios will look fro a HDD OS 1st, but really ought to look for removable devices if it doesn't find one.

[Edited on 27/1/10 by r1_pete]

I am assuming you have been into the bios and set the usb to be the primary boot device?

Would be interesting to know what other options you have in the bios.

You could try, if the usb cd will not work, copying the install files to a usb flash drive, and trying to boot from that. But you should be able to see what the laptop will boot from, by looking in the bios, you might even be able to boot from an SD card if the laptop has it of course)

From what i can remember, will older sony laptops, the bios was rubbish and did not give you much control over things.

The only other solution is to try and put the hdd into a computer, and install the os via that, and then put it back into the laptop - or another laptop without an external cd rom drive

Hi Pete

Tried all that. At wits end.

Have found in bios i.LINK Boot [Enabled]
Is this a new way of connecting an external cd rom drive. I am using usb drive. tried changing boot order with no luck.

Boot menu has Removable devices - Legacy Floppy Drives, CD-ROM, HD, Network Boot.

m8wkr, the replacement drive is from a working laptop. I think the OS is in a different place on it compared to the defective sony HDD. Should the bios not work through the drives?

[Edited on 27/1/10 by LoMoss]

I did come across a similar problem on an old IBM X series lappy, that one needed a recovery floppy, which you booted from, that installed a cut down windows95, enough to run the driver for the external CD ROM, and install the full OS, in that case XP.

It was a pain and worked about 25% of the time, you probably need something similar to drive the external device.

Pete

What I dont understand, is the replacement HDD has windows on it already. Is the installation of the OS unique to laptop bios/hardware etc

Yes, you will have lost the drivers for things like the CD Rom, Network devices, etc.

You cannot create a system disk on one laptop and use it in another unless the lappy's use the same hardware, bios etc. e.g. you couldn't build an OS in a Thinkpad t400, and fit it in your Sony and it work.

There should have been a recovery pack supplied with the laptop, if you dont have them, try Sony, they should be able to supply you with a recovery pack.

As well as the Operating System, it includes the device drivers the hardware needs to run.

Did you find the new hard drive in bios set up ? It will not find the OS until it has detected the new hard drive and if it's not set to auto it will still be looking at the old settings.

Hi Pete

The BIOS finds both old and replaced HDD. Found out that the i.link is a digital link and dont have a cd rom for it and some sonys have a hidden partition with boot data.