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#1
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Recovery Partition.
I have a Sony Vaio laptop that came preloaded with Windows 8.1 64bit home.
I never did anything to the OS except all the updates, but now after 3-4 yrs the 'assist' button to open the Vaio Center or whatever it's called so that I can make my recovery CD's does not work. I can't even get the menu item to work. And by "work" I mean make the DVD's. The program loads and I can get to the backup&recovery option as the manual instructs me, but the only things on the page then are the options to recover from the CD's and restore to factory settings. Obviously this is what I want but I don't have those DVDs yet. There are several partitions of ~500M on the drive. I'm sure one is some program to do the work and one may be the image? OEM Partition 260 MB Recovery Partition 1.44GB EFI System 260MB Recovery Partition 833 MB Recovery Partition 36.32 GB C: partition 462.06 GB D: Data 197.34 GB Anyway since I can't get to it normally is there any way to get this working so I can make my windows 8.1 CD's like I should have done on day one when maybe everything worked? |
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#2
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Recovery Partition.
On 8/3/2016 9:40 AM, Big Al wrote:
I have a Sony Vaio laptop that came preloaded with Windows 8.1 64bit home. I never did anything to the OS except all the updates, but now after 3-4 yrs the 'assist' button to open the Vaio Center or whatever it's called so that I can make my recovery CD's does not work. I can't even get the menu item to work. And by "work" I mean make the DVD's. The program loads and I can get to the backup&recovery option as the manual instructs me, but the only things on the page then are the options to recover from the CD's and restore to factory settings. Obviously this is what I want but I don't have those DVDs yet. There are several partitions of ~500M on the drive. I'm sure one is some program to do the work and one may be the image? OEM Partition 260 MB Recovery Partition 1.44GB EFI System 260MB Recovery Partition 833 MB Recovery Partition 36.32 GB C: partition 462.06 GB D: Data 197.34 GB Anyway since I can't get to it normally is there any way to get this working so I can make my windows 8.1 CD's like I should have done on day one when maybe everything worked? Yesrs ago I bought an HP desktop after the release of Windows Vista. There was a time-period within which I had to make the recovery media. After the period, say 90 days, the option to make the recovery media no longer worked. Oddly, after a major service pack update to Vista, the message pop-up to make the recovery media returned for the 90-day period as if the service pack "reset" the option. |
#3
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Recovery Partition.
On 03/08/2016 14:40, Big Al wrote:
I have a Sony Vaio laptop that came preloaded with Windows 8.1 64bit home. I never did anything to the OS except all the updates, but now after 3-4 yrs the 'assist' button to open the Vaio Center or whatever it's called so that I can make my recovery CD's does not work. I can't even get the menu item to work. And by "work" I mean make the DVD's. The program loads and I can get to the backup&recovery option as the manual instructs me, but the only things on the page then are the options to recover from the CD's and restore to factory settings. Obviously this is what I want but I don't have those DVDs yet. There are several partitions of ~500M on the drive. I'm sure one is some program to do the work and one may be the image? OEM Partition 260 MB Recovery Partition 1.44GB EFI System 260MB Recovery Partition 833 MB Recovery Partition 36.32 GB C: partition 462.06 GB D: Data 197.34 GB Anyway since I can't get to it normally is there any way to get this working so I can make my windows 8.1 CD's like I should have done on day one when maybe everything worked? There is no need for the recovery disks if you are prepared to download the full Windows 8.1 from Microsoft Website. I have done it once when I wanted to upgrade from 8.0 to 8.1. The download is the full version and your current OEM serial number would work. -- With over 350 million devices now running Windows 10, customer satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows. |
#4
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Recovery Partition.
On 8/3/2016 1:08 PM, Good Guy wrote:
On 03/08/2016 14:40, Big Al wrote: I have a Sony Vaio laptop that came preloaded with Windows 8.1 64bit home. I never did anything to the OS except all the updates, but now after 3-4 yrs the 'assist' button to open the Vaio Center or whatever it's called so that I can make my recovery CD's does not work. I can't even get the menu item to work. And by "work" I mean make the DVD's. The program loads and I can get to the backup&recovery option as the manual instructs me, but the only things on the page then are the options to recover from the CD's and restore to factory settings. Obviously this is what I want but I don't have those DVDs yet. There are several partitions of ~500M on the drive. I'm sure one is some program to do the work and one may be the image? OEM Partition 260 MB Recovery Partition 1.44GB EFI System 260MB Recovery Partition 833 MB Recovery Partition 36.32 GB C: partition 462.06 GB D: Data 197.34 GB Anyway since I can't get to it normally is there any way to get this working so I can make my windows 8.1 CD's like I should have done on day one when maybe everything worked? There is no need for the recovery disks if you are prepared to download the full Windows 8.1 from Microsoft Website. I have done it once when I wanted to upgrade from 8.0 to 8.1. The download is the full version and your current OEM serial number would work. Recovery media also contain drivers for the specific computer the OP has, Windows 8.1 may not natively have all the drivers the OP needs. |
#5
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Recovery Partition.
On 08/03/2016 02:02 PM, PAS wrote:
On 8/3/2016 1:08 PM, Good Guy wrote: On 03/08/2016 14:40, Big Al wrote: I have a Sony Vaio laptop that came preloaded with Windows 8.1 64bit home. I never did anything to the OS except all the updates, but now after 3-4 yrs the 'assist' button to open the Vaio Center or whatever it's called so that I can make my recovery CD's does not work. I can't even get the menu item to work. And by "work" I mean make the DVD's. The program loads and I can get to the backup&recovery option as the manual instructs me, but the only things on the page then are the options to recover from the CD's and restore to factory settings. Obviously this is what I want but I don't have those DVDs yet. There are several partitions of ~500M on the drive. I'm sure one is some program to do the work and one may be the image? OEM Partition 260 MB Recovery Partition 1.44GB EFI System 260MB Recovery Partition 833 MB Recovery Partition 36.32 GB C: partition 462.06 GB D: Data 197.34 GB Anyway since I can't get to it normally is there any way to get this working so I can make my windows 8.1 CD's like I should have done on day one when maybe everything worked? There is no need for the recovery disks if you are prepared to download the full Windows 8.1 from Microsoft Website. I have done it once when I wanted to upgrade from 8.0 to 8.1. The download is the full version and your current OEM serial number would work. Recovery media also contain drivers for the specific computer the OP has, Windows 8.1 may not natively have all the drivers the OP needs. One of my other Dell laptops had win7 OEM and I tried installing a retail copy of win7 once with the License on the sticker and it didn't work. OEM gets their automatic activation from the motherboard or some kinda feature like that?! I never put in a key on OEM machines. Besides, any one of those key finder programs I ran always gave me a different key than the one printed on the back of the laptop. Luckily in that machine I had been given DVDs. |
#6
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Recovery Partition.
"PAS" wrote in message ... On 8/3/2016 1:08 PM, Good Guy wrote: On 03/08/2016 14:40, Big Al wrote: I have a Sony Vaio laptop that came preloaded with Windows 8.1 64bit home. I never did anything to the OS except all the updates, but now after 3-4 yrs the 'assist' button to open the Vaio Center or whatever it's called so that I can make my recovery CD's does not work. I can't even get the menu item to work. And by "work" I mean make the DVD's. The program loads and I can get to the backup&recovery option as the manual instructs me, but the only things on the page then are the options to recover from the CD's and restore to factory settings. Obviously this is what I want but I don't have those DVDs yet. There are several partitions of ~500M on the drive. I'm sure one is some program to do the work and one may be the image? OEM Partition 260 MB Recovery Partition 1.44GB EFI System 260MB Recovery Partition 833 MB Recovery Partition 36.32 GB C: partition 462.06 GB D: Data 197.34 GB Anyway since I can't get to it normally is there any way to get this working so I can make my windows 8.1 CD's like I should have done on day one when maybe everything worked? There is no need for the recovery disks if you are prepared to download the full Windows 8.1 from Microsoft Website. I have done it once when I wanted to upgrade from 8.0 to 8.1. The download is the full version and your current OEM serial number would work. Recovery media also contain drivers for the specific computer the OP has, Windows 8.1 may not natively have all the drivers the OP needs. Ay, there's the rub. Perhaps a driver saver/restorer such as DoubleDriver or DriverBackup would fill the bill. |
#7
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Recovery Partition.
On 8/3/2016 2:14 PM, Big Al wrote:
On 08/03/2016 02:02 PM, PAS wrote: On 8/3/2016 1:08 PM, Good Guy wrote: On 03/08/2016 14:40, Big Al wrote: I have a Sony Vaio laptop that came preloaded with Windows 8.1 64bit home. I never did anything to the OS except all the updates, but now after 3-4 yrs the 'assist' button to open the Vaio Center or whatever it's called so that I can make my recovery CD's does not work. I can't even get the menu item to work. And by "work" I mean make the DVD's. The program loads and I can get to the backup&recovery option as the manual instructs me, but the only things on the page then are the options to recover from the CD's and restore to factory settings. Obviously this is what I want but I don't have those DVDs yet. There are several partitions of ~500M on the drive. I'm sure one is some program to do the work and one may be the image? OEM Partition 260 MB Recovery Partition 1.44GB EFI System 260MB Recovery Partition 833 MB Recovery Partition 36.32 GB C: partition 462.06 GB D: Data 197.34 GB Anyway since I can't get to it normally is there any way to get this working so I can make my windows 8.1 CD's like I should have done on day one when maybe everything worked? There is no need for the recovery disks if you are prepared to download the full Windows 8.1 from Microsoft Website. I have done it once when I wanted to upgrade from 8.0 to 8.1. The download is the full version and your current OEM serial number would work. Recovery media also contain drivers for the specific computer the OP has, Windows 8.1 may not natively have all the drivers the OP needs. One of my other Dell laptops had win7 OEM and I tried installing a retail copy of win7 once with the License on the sticker and it didn't work. OEM gets their automatic activation from the motherboard or some kinda feature like that?! I never put in a key on OEM machines. Besides, any one of those key finder programs I ran always gave me a different key than the one printed on the back of the laptop. Luckily in that machine I had been given DVDs I believe that the product key on the sticker on your laptop is different than the one on the installed OS is die to the computer maker using imaged hard drives. |
#8
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Recovery Partition.
On 03/08/2016 19:02, PAS wrote:
Recovery media also contain drivers for the specific computer the OP has, Windows 8.1 may not natively have all the drivers the OP needs. I have just checked my machine which I want to wipe clean and install 10 and there is a n OEM folder and it contains a big fat file that is pure 100% iso that can be burned in the normal way. See this pictu OEM Folder http://i.cubeupload.com/Jpocjx.png Best thing is to see if there is such a folder and if so is there a big fat file in it. If there is then try to unzip it using FileZilla to see what does it contain. FileZilla can unzip an ISO file so it saves you about 20 minutes to burn it. If you can unzip it then you can then either save it, burn it, or even create a USB bootable flash drive from it. It is possible to create a flash drive from ISO file using the Microsoft method rather than using any third party tools. Interesting thing is that file has survived since 2013 despite upgrading the machine from 8 to 8.1 and to 10 and now I want to wipe clean and install the anniversary edition. -- With over 350 million devices now running Windows 10, customer satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows. |
#9
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Recovery Partition.
On 8/3/16 7:40 AM, Big Al wrote:
I have a Sony Vaio laptop that came preloaded with Windows 8.1 64bit home. I never did anything to the OS except all the updates, but now after 3-4 yrs the 'assist' button to open the Vaio Center or whatever it's called so that I can make my recovery CD's does not work. I can't even get the menu item to work. And by "work" I mean make the DVD's. The program loads and I can get to the backup&recovery option as the manual instructs me, but the only things on the page then are the options to recover from the CD's and restore to factory settings. Obviously this is what I want but I don't have those DVDs yet. There are several partitions of ~500M on the drive. I'm sure one is some program to do the work and one may be the image? OEM Partition 260 MB Recovery Partition 1.44GB EFI System 260MB Recovery Partition 833 MB Recovery Partition 36.32 GB C: partition 462.06 GB D: Data 197.34 GB Anyway since I can't get to it normally is there any way to get this working so I can make my windows 8.1 CD's like I should have done on day one when maybe everything worked? If no one comes up with a good answer, how about this? Copy your data somewhere. Make a system image of what you have now. Run the recovery, I don't know what options you will be given for recovery options such as retaining your programs and data, formatting the hard driver, etc. Burn your DVDs, then reinstall the image. Or, reinstall your programs and copy your data back. -- Ken Mac OS X 10.8.5 Firefox 44.0 Thunderbird 38.0.1 "My brain is like lightning, a quick flash and it's gone!" |
#10
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Recovery Partition.
On 08/05/2016 02:02 PM, Ken Springer wrote:
On 8/3/16 7:40 AM, Big Al wrote: I never did anything to the OS except all the updates, but now after 3-4 yrs the 'assist' button to open the Vaio Center or whatever it's called so that I can make my recovery DVD's does not have that option. Anyway since I can't get to it normally is there any way to get this working so I can make my windows 8.1 DVD's like I should have done on day one when maybe everything worked? If no one comes up with a good answer, how about this? Copy your data somewhere. Make a system image of what you have now. Run the recovery, I don't know what options you will be given for recovery options such as retaining your programs and data, formatting the hard driver, etc. Burn your DVDs, then reinstall the image. Or, reinstall your programs and copy your data back. Problem is I don't have a way to make the recovery DVDs. That's the main issue. The data is there, but the software to trigger it isn't. |
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Recovery Partition.
On 05/08/2016 21:12, Big Al wrote:
Problem is I don't have a way to make the recovery DVDs. Most idiots have this problem so don't worry about it. -- If you want to filter all of my posts then please read this article: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/organize-your-messages-using-filters In step 7 select "Delete" With over 350 million devices now running Windows 10, customer satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows. |
#12
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Recovery Partition.
On 08/05/2016 05:05 PM, Ken1943 wrote:
On Wed, 3 Aug 2016 09:40:47 -0400, Big Al wrote: I have a Sony Vaio laptop that came preloaded with Windows 8.1 64bit home. I never did anything to the OS except all the updates, but now after 3-4 yrs the 'assist' button to open the Vaio Center or whatever it's called so that I can make my recovery CD's does not work. I can't even get the menu item to work. And by "work" I mean make the DVD's. The program loads and I can get to the backup&recovery option as the manual instructs me, but the only things on the page then are the options to recover from the CD's and restore to factory settings. Obviously this is what I want but I don't have those DVDs yet. There are several partitions of ~500M on the drive. I'm sure one is some program to do the work and one may be the image? OEM Partition 260 MB Recovery Partition 1.44GB EFI System 260MB Recovery Partition 833 MB Recovery Partition 36.32 GB C: partition 462.06 GB D: Data 197.34 GB Anyway since I can't get to it normally is there any way to get this working so I can make my windows 8.1 CD's like I should have done on day one when maybe everything worked? Did you look to purchase the dvd from Sony. Probably can't get them anymore, but worth a try. You could also buy a new computer with Windows 10 AND SUFFER with the rest of us. HaHaHa replaces lol Ken1943 That's kinda what we did. We did the upgrade and oddly enough the Sony Care software came over. I wonder if I got it to work, would it still make the 8.1 DVD's. I did find a thread on a site that gave a favorable suggestion to delete the sony care folder completely and then run the update utility and it should reload the most recent version of sony care software. That too is a problem that the update program fails with an error when trying to update the Sony Care program. So it might work if I try this and get the Sony Care software working. I'm sure it will make DVD's from the partition it has, not from the OS I have (win 10). Anyway, it's an option. I've got images of both the old win 8.1 and win10. |
#13
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Recovery Partition.
On Wed, 03 Aug 2016 09:40:47 -0400, Big Al wrote:
I have a Sony Vaio laptop that came preloaded with Windows 8.1 64bit home. I never did anything to the OS except all the updates, but now after 3-4 yrs the 'assist' button to open the Vaio Center or whatever it's called so that I can make my recovery CD's does not work. I can't even get the menu item to work. And by "work" I mean make the DVD's. The program loads and I can get to the backup&recovery option as the manual instructs me, but the only things on the page then are the options to recover from the CD's and restore to factory settings. Obviously this is what I want but I don't have those DVDs yet. There are several partitions of ~500M on the drive. I'm sure one is some program to do the work and one may be the image? OEM Partition 260 MB Recovery Partition 1.44GB EFI System 260MB Recovery Partition 833 MB Recovery Partition 36.32 GB C: partition 462.06 GB D: Data 197.34 GB Anyway since I can't get to it normally is there any way to get this working so I can make my windows 8.1 CD's like I should have done on day one when maybe everything worked? You list 3 separate recovery partitions. This may be why the software can't locate the correct one. You could always try having a look inside all 3 to see which one looks the most likely to be the real recovery partition. You could then image all three, then delete the least likely two and try again. By deleting and restoring each partition you should be able to eventually test all three; perhaps one of them will work. Of the three, the 36.32 GB one looks a tad large. For guidance, a W7 Pro 64 bit ISO is just over 3 GB and a W10 Pro 64 bit ISO is around 3.6 GB. So neither of the small ones looks big enough, and the big one looks 10 times too large (unless you mis-typed the size). If it was 3.632 GB that would look about right for an install with extra Sony goodness bundled in. Cheers Dave R -- Windows 8.1 on PCSpecialist box |
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