kirschkern

My sister's Sony Vaio laptop recently died (lots of dll errors, looks like Windows finally ate itself) so I offered to save her files off the computer using Knoppix before we send it in to be fixed. (Lost Windows install disks, so there's not tons I can do...)

I took a look at it tonight, and it wouldn't boot from the CD. When I checked BIOS, the CD drive wasn't even a boot option. It only had floppy drive (there is none on the laptop), optical drive (can't boot from this as hers is the only computer that could write one), boot from network, and hard drive.

Any suggestions of how to get around this? Windows won't start in safemode, and it's XP so no DOS prompt I could use to try to copy the Knoppix CD onto a hard drive or anything, right. Should I look into making a network boot? (Never done this, but I'm sure there are tutorials online I could find if it's the best option.)

Thanks for any help you can offer.

ozar

Not sure it will help, but you could look this over in case it might:

http://btmgr.webframe.org/

kirschkern

Hm.... it does look useful... but how would I get it on the laptop?

ozar

Not sure I understood the original question, but if the computer won't boot and you can't boot from CD, the you'd need to download it on another PC, then install it to a floppy disk for use on the laptop.

kirschkern

Well the laptop doesn't have a floppy drive. I don't know why it's in the boot options. Part of the mystery...

ozar

Sorry, I misread the original post as having a floppy, but now I see it only had a BIOS entry for it. Reading too fast!

With no floppy, and no bootable CD-drive, it sounds like you'll just have to start swapping out parts one at a time to see if any of them fix the laptop. I'd check hard drive and memory first, then start checking other items.

ozar

You could put a floppy on the laptop, I suppose, but since you probably don't have parts to use for swapping, it might be best to take the laptop in for repair. Does it have any warranty left on it? If so, that's what I'd do.

kirschkern

Thanks. From what I read on other forums, there are a lot of memory problems with Sony Vaios. I guess that'd be a good place to start.

ozar

If the files on it aren't top secret in some way, it would probably be best to take it on in to the computer shop, and let them fix it. They have the necessary tools for the job. You don't want to get stuck with some parts you buy and can't return.

Just my two cents...

kirschkern

Well, I have a floppy I could possibly take out of an older laptop. (Assuming it even comes out...) I'd have to look. Memory, I could probably swap an extra from mine. Hers is still under warantee, but I think they charge extra for data recovery. It's through Best Buy. : / Eh, maybe I'll just take it in and see what they say.